It is a good thing we had our party at The Plaza last week, because as suspected, the place is doomed. In the Times today:
Confirming rumors that had swirled in real estate circles for months, the real estate developer who bought the Plaza last fall said yesterday that the 805-room hotel would be turned into a multipurpose building.
April 30 is the closing date; they say it will be 18 months until it opens again as both condos and a mini-mall. The Times also reports that the Oak Bar, Oak Room, and Palm Court will be saved. The Palm Court was where Dorothy Parker was fired from Vanity Fair in 1920.
The developer, Miki Naftali, president and chief executive of Elad Properties, said he was planning 200 one- to four-bedroom condos, mainly on the Plaza’s upper floors, facing Fifth Avenue and Central Park South. He said that a hotel with 150 rooms, just under a fifth the number the Plaza has now, would occupy much of the 58th Street side of the building.
The developer is ripping out the ballroom (where Truman Capote held his Black and White Ball in 1966), Terrace Room and Oyster Bar.