The Plaza-- Toujours Une Glamagaza

"Inside the Plaza" by Ward Morehouse III
Reviewed by David Marshall James

During the 1980s, The Plaza hotel-- famously located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Central Park
South--ran a Don-Draper-worthy advertising campaign: "Nothing unimportant ever happens at The Plaza."

Merely perambulating along the corridors and through the lobby, popping in the shops, gazing at the glamour, renders a sense of elegance and history that exists in few American locales.

For the hotel has witnessed a vast Who's Who of the 20th century stroll beneath its glittering chandeliers and marble columns since opening in October 1907.

Who wouldn't want to take afternoon tea under the stained-glass ceiling in The Palm Court, or dine on something lobstery in One C.P.S. (formerly The Edwardian Room), with one of the World's most romantic street-window views-- carriages lined up along Central Park?

Trader Vic's restaurant and The Persian Room nightclub have come and gone, but the hotel-- as author Ward Morehouse III emphasizes-- has been a work-in-progress since its debut into Gilded Age glory, when the Vanderbilt mansion still stood on Fifth Avenue, a few blocks South.

As the author (who grew up, in a sense, with and in The Plaza, as his father and stepmother resided there) observes, a truly grand hotel must always offer a sense of what it was, in order to accommodate the familiarity of its faithful patrons, while acknowledging the expected evolving amenities.

The couples who wed, spend their honeymoons, and celebrate their anniversaries at The Plaza remain a prized collection of guests.

The many events held in The Grand Ballroom-- Truman Capote called it the most beautiful one in New York City, selecting it as the site of his 1966 "Black and White" ball masque-- lace the frameworks of many memories, enticing participants to return to celebrate fresh hallmarks in their lives.

Everything that happens at The Plaza is important to the person concerned, creating an indelible memory.

That memory may be only a glimpse of the exterior. Katharine Hepburn, in a "60 Minutes" interview, remarked that she just liked knowing that The Plaza was there when she rode her bicycle along Central Park South.

This past week, on "The View," Joan Rivers remarked that her bucket list included "just breathing." Few entertainment afficionadoes missed the details incorporated into her daughter Melissa's wedding reception at The Plaza, including a "forest in winter" fantasy theme.

For those travelers with breathing room on their bucket lists, two words: "The Plaza."