Hof
April 5th, 2005, 01:03 PM
I just signed a petition on "savetheplaza.com".It's probably an invalid chad-like vote,since I no longer live in NYC,but I had to put mt 2 cents in.
The petition brings a fight to the efforts of Israeli investors,who want to gut the elegant,inspiring,Plaza Hotel and turn it into hundreds of exclusive,Central Park-view condominiums,getaways for the amazingly rich who want Miami lifestyle privileges in Midtown.
A few hotel rooms,about 150,will remain,probably overlooking the Northside loading docks.Maybe Holiday Inns could run them.The gracious,4-story main rooms will become retail space,and the restaurants and bars will disappear,replaced with maybe a Ruby Tuesday's or a Sbarro with oak paneling.The exterior of the hotel has been Landmarked,but the area on the other side of the brass doors is ripe for revision,as the plans sickenly spell out.
This is so inappropriate that it screams for Landmark Commission intervention.
There are a few places in the City that have just plain earned their status,and The Plaza heads that small list.It needs to be what it is--an actual piece of 19th-century elegance,born and raised as the best hotel in a City of Grand Hotels,sitting on a piece of real estate that was God-given.
I really,really thought that New Yorkers learned from the demolition of Penn Station and the destruction of the City's symbols and the like,how important to the fabric of the City some buildings are,but I guess evolution in real historic Preservation is a glacially slow process.
My address for the site may be innaccurate,but if you Yahoo "Plaza Hotel",it's right there on top.Vote to save this place,to keep it in one piece.To change it's status according to the whims of offshore investors is obscene.
The petition brings a fight to the efforts of Israeli investors,who want to gut the elegant,inspiring,Plaza Hotel and turn it into hundreds of exclusive,Central Park-view condominiums,getaways for the amazingly rich who want Miami lifestyle privileges in Midtown.
A few hotel rooms,about 150,will remain,probably overlooking the Northside loading docks.Maybe Holiday Inns could run them.The gracious,4-story main rooms will become retail space,and the restaurants and bars will disappear,replaced with maybe a Ruby Tuesday's or a Sbarro with oak paneling.The exterior of the hotel has been Landmarked,but the area on the other side of the brass doors is ripe for revision,as the plans sickenly spell out.
This is so inappropriate that it screams for Landmark Commission intervention.
There are a few places in the City that have just plain earned their status,and The Plaza heads that small list.It needs to be what it is--an actual piece of 19th-century elegance,born and raised as the best hotel in a City of Grand Hotels,sitting on a piece of real estate that was God-given.
I really,really thought that New Yorkers learned from the demolition of Penn Station and the destruction of the City's symbols and the like,how important to the fabric of the City some buildings are,but I guess evolution in real historic Preservation is a glacially slow process.
My address for the site may be innaccurate,but if you Yahoo "Plaza Hotel",it's right there on top.Vote to save this place,to keep it in one piece.To change it's status according to the whims of offshore investors is obscene.