Plaza Hotel

The Plaza Hotel (also known as The Plaza) is a luxury hotel and condominium apartment building in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is located on the western side of Grand Army Plaza, after which it is named, just west of Fifth Avenue, and is between 58th Street and Central Park South ( 59th Street), at the southeastern corner of Central Park. Its primary address is 768 Fifth Avenue, though the residential entrance is One Central Park South.

The 21-story, French Renaissance-inspired château style building was designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh. The facade is made of marble at the base, with white brick covering the upper stories, and is topped by a mansard roof. The ground floor contains the two primary lobbies, as well as a corridor connecting the large ground-floor restaurant spaces, including the Oak Room, the Oak Bar, the Edwardian Room, the Palm Court, and the Terrace Room. The upper stories contain the ballroom and a variety of residential condominiums, condo-hotel suites, and short-term hotel suites. At its peak, the Plaza Hotel had over 800 rooms. Following a renovation in 2008, the building has 282 hotel rooms and 181 condos.

A predecessor hotel of the same name was built from 1883 to 1890. The original hotel was replaced by the current structure from 1905 to 1907; Warren and Wetmore designed an expansion to the Plaza Hotel that was added from 1919 to 1921, and several major renovations were conducted through the rest of the 20th century. The Plaza Operating Company, which erected the current building, operated the hotel until 1943. Subsequently, it was sold to several owners during the remainder of the 20th century, including Conrad Hilton, A.M. Sonnabend, Westin Hotels & Resorts, Donald Trump, and a partnership of City Developments Limited and Al-Waleed bin Talal. The Plaza Hotel was renovated again after El Ad Properties purchased it in 2005, and the hotel was subsequently sold to Sahara India Pariwar in 2012 and then to Katara Hospitality in 2018. The hotel has been managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts since 2005.

Since its inception, the Plaza Hotel has become an icon of New York City, with numerous wealthy and famous guests. The restaurant spaces and ballrooms have hosted events such as balls, benefits, weddings, and press conferences. The hotel's design, as well as its location near Central Park, has generally received acclaim. In addition, the Plaza Hotel has appeared in numerous books and films. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the hotel's exterior and some of its interior spaces as city landmarks, and the building is also a National Historic Landmark. The hotel is also a member of Historic Hotels of America.

Site

The Plaza Hotel is at 768 Fifth Avenue and One Central Park South in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It faces Central Park South (59th Street) and the Pond and Hallett Nature Sanctuary in Central Park to the north; Grand Army Plaza to the east; and 58th Street to the south. Fifth Avenue itself is across Grand Army Plaza from the hotel. The hotel's site covers . It measures along 58th Street and along Central Park South, with a depth of between the two streets. As completed in 1907, it measured along 58th Street and along Central Park South, with an "L" running the entire 200-foot depth of the lot along Grand Army Plaza.

The hotel is near the General Motors Building to the east; the Park Lane Hotel to the west; and the Solow Building, Paris Theater (Manhattan), and Bergdorf Goodman Building to the south. The hotel's main entrance faces the '' Pulitzer Fountain'' in the southern portion of Grand Army Plaza. An entrance to the Fifth Avenue–59th Street station of the New York City Subway's is within the base of the hotel at Central Park South.

Fifth Avenue between 42nd Street and Central Park South was relatively undeveloped throughout the late 19th century, when brownstone rowhouses were built on the avenue. By the early 1900s, that section of Fifth Avenue was becoming commercialized. The first decade of the 20th century saw the construction of hotels, stores, and clubs such as the St. Regis New York, the University Club of New York, and the Gotham Hotel. The corner of Fifth Avenue, Central Park South, and 59th Street was developed with the Plaza, Savoy, and New Netherland hotels during the 1890s; the Savoy would be replaced in 1927 by the Savoy-Plaza Hotel, which itself would be demolished in 1964. All three hotels contributed to Fifth Avenue's importance as an upscale area.

Architecture

The Plaza Hotel, a French Renaissance-inspired château-style building, contains 21 stories and is tall. The hotel's floors are numbered according to European usage, where floor 1, corresponding to the second story, is directly above the ground floor. The building was designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh in 1907, with a later addition, by Warren and Wetmore, being built from 1919 to 1922. The interiors of the main public spaces were primarily designed by Hardenbergh, Warren and Wetmore, and Schultze & Weaver. The other interior spaces were by Annabelle Selldorf and date largely to a renovation in 2008. Numerous contractors were involved in the construction of the hotel, including the Atlantic Terra Cotta Company and brick contractor Pfotenhauer & Nesbit.

Facade

The detail of the facade is concentrated on its two primary elevations, which face north toward Central Park and east toward Fifth Avenue. The facade's articulation consists of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column, namely a base, shaft, and crown. The northern and eastern elevations are also split vertically into three portions, with the center portion being recessed. The northeastern and southeastern corners of the hotel contain rounded corners, which resemble turrets. There are numerous loggias, balustrades, columns, pilasters, balconies, and arches repeated across various parts of the facade. The 1921 annex contains a design that is largely similar to Hardenbergh's 1907 design.

Base

The first and second stories of the facade, respectively corresponding to the ground floor and floor 1 of the interior, are clad with rusticated blocks of marble. The third story, corresponding to floor 2 of the interior, contains a smooth marble surface. The hotel had two guest entrances in the 1907 design: the main entrance on Central Park South and a private entrance for long-term residents on 58th Street. The main entrance, in the center of the Central Park South facade, contains a porch above the three center bays, and large doorways. Since the hotel's 2008 renovation, the Central Park South entrance has served as the entrance to the building's condominiums.

The Grand Army Plaza side originally contained a terrace called the Champagne Porch. There were three minor entrances, including one to the porch. The Champagne Porch was replaced by a large central entry in 1921. The entrance there consists of six Tuscan-style columns, supporting a balcony on the second story, immediately above ground level. The second and third stories at the center of the Grand Army Plaza facade contains paired Corinthian-style pilasters supporting an entablature.

Upper stories

The fourth through fifteenth stories, respectively corresponding to interior floors 3 through 14, are clad with white brick and typically contain rectangular windows. These stories contain terracotta veneers that harmonize with the marble facade below it and the mansard roof above. At the center of the Central Park South facade, the five center bays at the twelfth and thirteenth stories (floors 11 and 12) contain an arcade composed of arches with paired pilasters. On the Grand Army Plaza side, there are horizontal band courses above the thirteenth story. The 58th Street facade is a scaled-down version of the two primary elevations on Central Park South and Grand Army Plaza. A marble balcony runs above the thirteenth story on all sides.

The top floors are within a green-tile mansard roof with copper trim. The Grand Army Plaza side contains a gable, while the 58th Street and Central Park South sides have dormer windows on the sixteenth through nineteenth stories, corresponding to interior floors 15 through 18. The turrets on the northeastern and southeastern corners are topped by domed roofs. The twentieth story (floor 19) is the top story of the mansard roof; above it is a twenty-first-story penthouse, labeled as floor 20.

Mechanical features

The hotel originally contained three sets of pneumatic tube mail systems: one for guest mail, another for guests to order food from the kitchen, and a third for the hotel's various operating departments. The hotel also originally had 10 passenger elevators, 13 dumbwaiters, and three sidewalk elevators. These elevators included four at the Central Park South lobby, three at the 58th Street lobby, and two near Central Park South, for long-term residents. The hotel's water storage tanks had a capacity of , and the hotel could filter of water from the New York City water supply system each day.

The mechanical plant in the subbasement originally contained nine boilers; a coal plant with a capacity of ; fourteen ventilating fans; and an electric generating plant with a capacity of . Also in the subbasement was a refrigerating plant that could make of ice every 24 hours, as well as a switchboard made of Tennessee marble, which controlled the hotel's power and lighting.

Interior

The hotel has a steel frame superstructure with hollow tile floors, as well as wired-glass enclosures around all stairways and elevators. Originally, five marble staircases led from the ground floor to all of the other floors. As constructed, the stories above the ground floor surrounded a large courtyard, which was covered over with office space in a 1940s renovation. Hardenbergh, in designing the Central Park South foyer, had believed the lobby to be the most important space in the hotel, as did Warren and Wetmore when they designed the Fifth Avenue lobby. Furthermore, Warren and Wetmore had thought restaurants to be the second most significant space in a hotel, in designing the Terrace Room.

There were originally laundry rooms in the basement and on floor 18. When the hotel opened in 1907, the basement also contained a grill room, kitchen, various refrigeration rooms, and amenities such as a Turkish bath and a barber shop. Originally concealed within the mansard roof were the housekeepers' quarters and maids' dormitories; the eighteenth floor had carpentry, ironing, and tailors' departments. The spaces on floor 18 had become offices by the late 20th century.

Hallways and lobbies

In Hardenbergh's original design, a main corridor connects the primary spaces on the ground floor. The corridor, which still exists, connects the lobbies on 58th Street, Grand Army Plaza, and Central Park South. The layout of the ground-floor hallways dates largely from the 1921 expansion by Warren and Wetmore. The corridor wraps around the south, east, and north sides of the Palm Court, which is in the center of the ground floor. Various smaller corridors lead off the main corridor. All of the halls have floors decorated with mosaics, coffered ceilings made of plaster, and marble columns and pilasters with bronze capitals.

The Central Park South entrance foyer served as the original main lobby, and is in the shape of a "U", with an overhanging mezzanine. It contains veined Italian-marble finishes, gold-colored trimmings, a mosaic floor, a plaster coffered ceiling, and columns similar to those in the main corridor. There is a bank of four elevators, with decorative bronze doors, directly in front of the entrance. A crystal chandelier hangs from the ceiling. The entrance doorways contain bronze frames with lunettes. The original design had the branch offices of major brokerage houses adjoining the foyer, including in the modern-day Oak Bar.

During Warren and Wetmore's expansion, the Grand Army Plaza lobby, also called the Fifth Avenue lobby, was created as the hotel's new main lobby, which occupied the former Plaza Restaurant's space. The lobby contains a "U"-shaped mezzanine running above the northern, eastern, and southern walls, with three entrance vestibules below the eastern section of the mezzanine. The Fifth Avenue lobby was decorated with bas-reliefs; and it preserved some of the original decorations from the Plaza Restaurant, including paneled pilasters and a beamed ceiling. Other features, including the mosaic floor and a crystal chandelier, were added by Warren and Wetmore.

The 58th Street entrance has three elevators and adjoins what was formerly a women's reception room. West of this lobby is a staircase leading up to a mezzanine-level corridor, which has marble floors and ashlar walls and abuts the Terrace Room's balcony to the north and a foyer to the south. The mezzanine-level foyer has marble floors, a painted coffered ceiling supported by two square columns, and a bank of two elevators to the ballroom on floor 1. A marble staircase, with a marble and wooden balustrade, leads from the mezzanine foyer to the ballroom level.

The layout of the upper floors was based on the layout of the ground-floor hallways, because all the stairways and elevators were placed in the same position on upper floors. On floor 2 and all subsequent stories, a centrally located C-shaped corridor runs around the north, east, and south sides of the building and connects every room.

Ground-floor restaurants

The Oak Room, on the western part of the ground floor, was built in 1907 as the bar room. It is west of the Central Park South foyer, separated from the foyer by a corridor. Compared to other spaces in the hotel, it retains more details from the original design. The Oak Room was designed in a German Renaissance style, originally by L. Alavoine and Company. It features oak walls and floors, a coved ceiling, frescoes of Bavarian castles, faux wine casks carved into the woodwork, and a grape-laden brass chandelier. The eastern wall contains a gridded glass double door leading to the main hallway, while the northern wall contains two openings to the Oak Bar.

The Oak Bar is just north of the Oak Room, at the northwest corner of the ground floor. It is designed in Tudor Revival style with a plaster ceiling, strapwork, and floral and foliage motifs. The bar room contains walnut woodwork with French furnishings. It also has three murals by Everett Shinn, which were added in a 1945 renovation and show the neighborhood as it would have appeared in 1907. Prior to the renovation, the Oak Bar served as a brokerage office.

The Edwardian Room, previously known as the Men's Grill or Fifth Avenue Cafe, is at the northeast corner of the ground floor and measures . It was originally designed by William Baumgarten & Company and McNulty Brothers, but it has been redecorated multiple times. It contains dark Flemish-oak paneling, high, with finishes and doorway surrounds made of Caen stone. The floor is inlaid with mosaic tiles. The beamed ceiling is inlaid with mirrors, giving the impression of highly decorated trusses. The room is lit by large windows and eight large bronze chandeliers. The room's original color scheme was a relatively toned-down palette of green, dark brown, and gray hues. When first built, there was a musicians' balcony overlooking the room. The room also had an entrance at Grand Army Plaza, which was closed with the creation of the Fifth Avenue lobby. The space housed the Green Tulip and Plaza Suite restaurants in the late 20th century; by the 2000s, it was known as One CPS.

The Palm Court, previously known as the tea room, is in the center of the ground floor. It contains a design inspired by the Palm Court at the Carlton Hotel in London. It has walls made of Caen stone. As in the main corridor, the Palm Court contains mosaic floors, as well as marble pilasters and columns, topped by bronze capitals. The Palm Court initially had a stained glass ceiling, which was removed in a 1940s renovation; it was restored in the mid-2000s. There were also mirrors on the western wall, against which are four caryatids carved by Pottier & Stymus, which frame the wall mirrors and represent the seasons. The Palm Court was renovated in 2014; its modern design includes four palm trees as well as a central marble-and-brass bar. East of the Palm Court, separated from it by the main corridor, were once the Plaza Restaurant and the Champagne Porch. The Palm Court and Plaza Restaurant, which shared nearly identical designs, originally formed a "vast dining hall". Removable glass panes along the main corridor abutted both spaces.

The Terrace Room, west of the Palm Court, is part of Warren and Wetmore's 1921 design. The room was so named because it contains three terraces that increase in height from east to west and divide the room into three sections, which are separated by balustrades and connected by small staircases. The space contains Renaissance-style motifs on the pilasters, ceilings, and wall arches, as well as three chandeliers and rusticated-marble walls. John B. Smeraldi was commissioned to paint the Terrace Room's ornamentation. The room is surrounded by a balcony, with a painted coffer ceiling possibly commissioned by Smeraldi, as well as marble pilasters and floors. A balcony runs slightly above the room on its southern wall. Immediately south of the balcony is the Terrace Room's corridor and foyer.

The southeastern corner of the ground floor originally contained the 58th Street Restaurant, which was exclusively for the hotel's long-term residents. In 1934, it was replaced by a nightclub called the Persian Room, which had red and Persian-blue upholstery by Joseph Urban, five wall murals by Lillian Gaertner Palmedo, and a bar. The room operated until 1978.

Ballroom

The original double-height ballroom from Hardenbergh's plan was on the north side of the second story, or floor 1 according to the Plaza Hotel's floor numbering system. The old ballroom, with a capacity of 500 to 600 people, was served by its own elevator and staircase, and contained a movable stage. The old ballroom was overlooked on three sides by balconies, and contained a white-and-cream color scheme similar to the current ballroom. It was served by its own entrance on 58th Street. By the 1970s, the old ballroom was replaced by offices.

The current ballroom on floor 1 is at the center of that story. It was initially designed by Warren and Wetmore, and had a capacity of 800 people for dinners and 1,000 people for dances. The room contained a coved ceiling designed by Smeraldi, with crosses, hexagons, and octagons, as well as six chandeliers. The ballroom had a stage on its western wall, within a rectangular opening. A balcony ran across the three other walls and was supported by pilasters with bronze capitals.

In 1929, Warren and Wetmore's ballroom was reconstructed according to a neoclassical design by Schultze & Weaver. The room has a white-and-cream color scheme with gold ornamentation, evocative of the original ballroom's design. The stage remains on the western wall, but is within a rounded opening. The redesign added audience boxes, with decorative metal railings, on the north and east walls. The ballroom contains a coved ceiling with roundels, lunettes, bas reliefs, and two chandeliers. South of the ballroom proper is a corridor running west to east. The corridor has a decorative barrel-vaulted paneled ceiling and had a balcony that was removed during the 1929 redesign. On the southernmost section of floor 1 is the ballroom foyer and the stair hall, two formerly separate rooms that were combined in 1965 to form a neoclassical marble-clad space. The stair hall contains the stairs leading from the mezzanine foyer.

Condominiums and suites

The Plaza Hotel's condominiums and suites start on the third story, labeled as floor 2. As originally built, they contained three primary types of suites: those with one bedroom and one bathroom; those with two bedrooms and two bathrooms; and those with a parlor and varying numbers of bedrooms and bathrooms. The walls were originally painted in rose, yellow, cream, and gray hues. For decorative effect, the rooms contained wooden wainscoting and furniture, while the plaster ceilings supported crystal chandeliers. A guest or resident could request multiple suites, since there were smaller private hallways adjacent to the main hallway on each floor. There were also staff rooms at the corners of the main corridor on each floor. Dumbwaiters led from the staff rooms to the basement kitchen, allowing guests to order meals and eat them in-suite.

Following its 2008 renovation, the building contains 181 privately owned condominiums, which are marketed as the Plaza Residences or One Central Park South. The condominiums are on the north and east sides of the building and have a variety of layouts, from studio apartments to three-story penthouse units. The condos' interiors include parquet floors and stone counters, and largely reflect the original design of these rooms. There are also 282 hotel units on the southern side of the building. Of these, 152 condo-hotel units occupy the eleventh through twenty-first stories, respectively labeled as floors 10 through 20. The condo-hotel units serve as residences for investors or staff for up to four months a year, and are used as short-term hotel units for the remaining time. In addition, there are 130 rooms exclusively for short-term stays on the fourth through tenth stories, respectively labeled as floors 3 through 9. The hotel portion of the building retains a butler on each floor, reminiscent of the hotel's original ambience.

Hardenbergh's design included the State Apartment on the northern side of floor 1. This apartment was one of the most lavish suites in the entire hotel; it had a drawing room, antechambers, dining rooms, bedrooms and bathrooms, and food storage. Also on floor 1 were private banquet, reception, and card rooms. The apartment was turned into a private dining area and restored in 1974. Similarly ornate suites were located along the Central Park South side on eleven of the upper floors. The twenty-first story (labeled as floor 20) was created as part of the 2008 renovation, and is part of a four-bedroom penthouse, the largest condominium in the building.

In the early- and mid-20th century, several designers, such as Elsie de Wolfe and Cecil Beaton, were hired to design special suites for the hotel, which has also offered suites or experiences that are themed to notable books or films set there. During 2013, a suite on the 18th floor of the hotel was furnished with various decorations from the movie ''The Great Gatsby''. The furnished room was based on the novel of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which had several scenes set at the hotel (see ). During 2017 and 2018, the Plaza Hotel sold vacation packages with memorabilia, photo opportunities, an in-suite ice cream sundae, and visits to New York City tourist attractions based on the film '' Home Alone 2: Lost in New York'', which is partially set in the hotel. Another room in the hotel was redecorated in 2022 to promote the TV series ''The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel''.

History

The land lots making up the site of the present-day Plaza Hotel were first parceled and sold by the government of New York City in 1853, and acquired by John Anderson from 1870 to 1881. Prior to the Plaza Hotel's development, the site was occupied either by the New York Skating Club, or was vacant. When John Anderson died in 1881, his will stipulated that his land would pass to his son, John Charles Anderson. The first development on the site was proposed in 1882, when Ernest Flagg was enlisted to design a 12-story apartment building for a syndicate led by his father, Jared. However, the Flagg apartment development was not built, likely due to a lack of funding.

First hotel

John Duncan Phyfe and James Campbell acquired the site in 1883. Phyfe and Campbell announced plans for a nine-story apartment building at the site in October of that year, to be designed by Carl Pfeiffer; and construction on the apartment block began that same year. The builders borrowed over $800,000 from the New York Life Insurance Company, and obtained a second mortgage from John Charles Anderson for a total investment of $2 million. By 1887, after taking three loans from New York Life, Phyfe and Campbell found that they did not have enough funds to complete the apartment block. The extent to which the apartment building was completed before the builders' bankruptcy is unclear.

In February 1888, brothers Eugene M. and Frank Earle entered into a contract to lease the hotel from Phyfe and Campbell and to furnish it. New York Life concurrently foreclosed on the apartment building and that September bought it at public auction for $925,000. Shortly afterward, New York Life decided to remodel the interiors completely, hiring architects McKim, Mead & White to complete the hotel. New York Life leased the hotel to Frederick A. Hammond in 1889, and the Hammond brothers became the operators of the hotel for the next fifteen years.

The first Plaza Hotel finally opened on October 1, 1890, at a cost of $3 million. The original hotel stood eight stories tall and had 400 rooms. The interiors featured extensive mahogany and carved-wood furnishings; lion motifs, representing the hotel's coat of arms; and a dining room with stained glass windows and gold and white decorations. Moses King, in his 1893 ''Handbook of New York City'', characterized the hotel as "one of the most attractive public houses in the wide world". Despite being described as fashionable, it was not profitable. ''The New York Times'' reported in 1891 that the hotel netted $72,000 in rental income, against the $1.8 million that New York Life had spent to complete the hotel, including loans to Phyfe and Campbell.

Redeveloped hotel in the early 20th century

The first Plaza Hotel had been relatively remote when it was completed, but by the first decade of the 20th century was part of a rapidly growing commercial district on Fifth Avenue. Furthermore, several upscale hotels in Manhattan were also being rebuilt during that time. In May 1902, a syndicate purchased the Plaza and three adjacent lots on Central Park South for $3 million. The sale was the largest-ever cash-only purchase for a Manhattan property at the time. The purchasers were headed by Harry S. Black—who headed the George A. Fuller Company, one of the syndicate's members—as well as German financier Bernhard Beinecke. Shortly after the purchase, Black and Beinecke formed the Plaza Realty Company to redevelop the hotel. In mid-1905, Black also formed the United States Realty and Construction Company, a trust whose subsidiaries included the Fuller Company and the Plaza Realty Company. To acquire sufficient funding for the redevelopment, Black and Beinecke approached barbed-wire entrepreneur John Warne Gates, who agreed to fund the project on the condition that Frederic Sterry be named the managing director of the hotel.

Construction

Henry J. Hardenbergh was hired as architect in 1905, initially being commissioned to expand the existing hotel by five stories. Hardenbergh had already gained some renown for designing other upscale hotels, such as the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, twenty-five blocks south, during the 1890s. Beinecke, Black, and Gates subsequently discovered that the foundation of the existing hotel could not support the additional stories, so they decided to rebuild it completely. The George A. Fuller Company was contracted to construct the new hotel. Hardenbergh designed the new hotel building while the owners waited for the existing lease to expire. His design took advantage of the fact that the site faced Grand Army Plaza and could thus be seen from many angles.

The first Plaza Hotel was closed on June 11, 1905, and demolition commenced immediately upon the expiration of the lease there. The existing hotel's furnishings were auctioned immediately. The site was cleared within two months of the start of demolition. Hardenbergh filed plans for the hotel with the New York City Department of Buildings that September. By the next month, contractors were clearing the old hotel's foundation. The new hotel was to use of steel, and a group of 100 workers and seven derricks erected two stories of steelwork every six days. The Fuller Company decided to hire both union and non-union ironworkers for the hotel's construction, a decision that angered the union workers., states that union workers were hired for high-skill jobs, but required higher wages. Non-union workers were hired for low-skill jobs and could be paid lower wages. Patrolmen were hired to protect the non-union workers, and one patrolmen was killed during a dispute with union workers. By October 1906, the facade of the new hotel was under construction.

Hardenbergh and Sterry directed several firms to furnish the interior spaces. Sterry recalled that all of the interior features were custom-designed for the hotel, such as 1,650 crystal chandeliers and the largest-ever order of gold-rimmed cutlery. Much of the furniture was manufactured by the Pooley Company of Philadelphia; where the Pooley Company could not manufacture the furnishings, the Plaza's developers chartered ships to import material from Europe. Sterry himself was dispatched to Europe to purchase these materials. The developers anticipated that the hotel would cost $8.5 million to construct, including the furnishings. However, additional expenditures pushed the final construction cost to $12.5 million. To pay for the construction costs, the developers received a $5 million loan in mid-1906, followed by another $4.5 million loan in 1907.

Opening and expansion

The new 800-room Plaza Hotel was opened on October 1, 1907, twenty-seven months after work had commenced. The opening was attended by people such as businessman Diamond Jim Brady; actresses Lillian Russell, Billie Burke, Maxine Elliott, and Fritzi Scheff; producers David Belasco and Oscar Hammerstein I; actor John Drew Jr.; and author Mark Twain. Though the opening coincided with the Panic of 1907, the hotel suffered minimal losses. The new hotel more than doubled the capacity of the first structure, and it was intended as a largely residential hotel at opening, although the terms for "hotel" and "apartment" were largely synonymous at the time. Estimates held that ninety percent of the units were for long-term residents. The owners charged short-term guests $2.50 nightly. In addition to the apartments, there were 500 bathrooms, ten elevators, a myriad of marble staircases, and two floors of public rooms. Gates, one of the original investors, was among the residents of the new Plaza; when he died in 1911, his funeral was held at the hotel.

Most of the public rooms were not originally given formal names. Although Hardenbergh had predicted that gender-segregated spaces were going out of fashion, there was a women's reception room near 58th Street; and the bar room and men's grill (respectively the present Oak and Edwardian Rooms) were exclusively used by men. In practice, the men's grill acted as a social club where discussing business was socially inappropriate, while the bar was a space to talk business. Sometime between 1912 and the start of Prohibition in the United States in 1920, the brokerage office near the entrance, now the Oak Bar, was turned into an extension of the bar room. The Champagne Porch along Grand Army Plaza was the most exclusive area of the hotel, with meals costing between $50 and $500. The basement's grill room hosted ice-skating in the summer, as well as a "dog check room" where residents' dogs could be fed luxuriously. In its first decade, the Plaza employed a staff of over 1,500.

From the start, the Plaza Operating Company was already preparing for the possibility of expansion, and acquired the lots between 5 and 19 West 58th Street in the first two decades of the 20th century. This land acquisition commenced before the second hotel had even opened. By 1915, the Plaza Operating Company had acquired four lots on West 58th Street and one on Central Park South, and it received an exemption from the 1916 Zoning Resolution, which set height restrictions for new buildings on the 58th Street side of the lots. The company filed plans for a 19-story annex along 58th Street in August 1919, to be designed by Warren and Wetmore. The final lots, at 15 and 17 West 58th Street, were acquired in 1920 after the plans had been filed. The George A. Fuller Company was again hired as the builder. To fund the construction of the annex, the Plaza Operating Company took out mortgage loans worth $2.275 million.

The Champagne Porch was only frequented by the extremely wealthy; and in 1921, after the start of Prohibition, Sterry decided to remove the room altogether. An enlarged entrance took its place. The work also included building a new restaurant called the Terrace Room, as well as a ballroom and 350 additional suites. Warren and Wetmore designed the expanded interior with more subtle contrasts in the decor, compared to Hardenbergh's design. The annex opened October 14, 1921, with an event in the ballroom, but was not officially completed until April 1922. With the advent of Prohibition, the bar room was also closed, and the gender segregation rule was relaxed. The space occupied by the present-day Oak Bar became the offices of brokerage EF Hutton. The Plaza had become the city's most valuable hotel by 1923, and contributed to the parent U.S. Realty Company being highly profitable and paying increasingly high dividends during the 1920s.

Great Depression

For unknown reasons, Warren and Wetmore's ballroom was reconstructed from June to September 1929, based on neoclassical designs by Schultze & Weaver. Shortly afterward, U.S. Realty's stock price collapsed in the Wall Street Crash of October 1929, which commenced the Great Depression in the United States. Plaza Hotel co-owner Harry Black killed himself the following year, and his partner Bernhard Beinecke died two years later. The rebuilt Plaza's first manager, Fred Sterry, died in 1933. The early 1930s were also financially difficult for the Plaza Hotel, as only half of the suites were occupied by 1932. To reduce operating costs for the hotel's restaurants, the grill room in the basement was converted into a closet, while the Rose Room became an automobile showroom. The furnishings of the hotel fell into disrepair; and during some months management was unable to pay staff.

By the mid-1930s, the old tea room was officially known as the Palm Court, having been frequently referred to as the "Palm Room" during the previous decade. The back room was reopened as the Oak Room restaurant in 1934, although it was still referred to as the "back room" by its frequent visitors, which included bankers and brokers. The same year, the Fifth Avenue lobby received display windows and a doorway on the southern wall; and the southeastern corner of the ground floor was remodeled into the Persian Room.

Mid-20th century

Hilton operation

U.S. Realty continued to lose money through the 1930s, and started selling off its properties, including the Plaza Hotel. In October 1943, Atlas Corporation, collaborating with hotelier Conrad Hilton, bought the Plaza Hotel for $7.4 million. At the time, the Plaza was 61 percent occupied, and many public areas were closed due to supply shortages caused by World War II. Hilton subsequently spent $6 million refurbishing the hotel. During mid-1944, the lobby on Fifth Avenue was renovated and its mezzanine was enclosed. The Palm Court skylight, having fallen into disrepair, was removed for the installation of air conditioning equipment. A mezzanine was also built above the hotel's former courtyard, and the room itself became the Court Lounge. The brokerage office at the ground level's northwestern corner was turned into the Oak Bar, which opened in January 1945; and EF Hutton was relegated to the Fifth Avenue lobby's mezzanine.; ; The contractor for the renovations may have been Frederick P. Platt & Brother, which was the Plaza Hotel's primary contractor in the 1940s.

The Plaza Hotel Corporation, the hotel's operator, was merged with the Hilton Hotels Corporation in 1946. The following year, the Plaza Rendez-Vous opened within the old grill room space. By the early 1950s, women were allowed inside the Oak Room and Bar during evenings and in the summer. The Oak Room and Bar was still a men-only space before 3 p.m., while the stock exchanges were open.

Hilton sold the hotel in 1953 to Boston industrialist A.M. "Sonny" Sonnabend for $15 million, and immediately leased it back for 2.5 years. Sonnabend became president of national restaurant chain Childs Company in 1955, and Childs purchased the Plaza that November for $6.2 million in stock. The same year, the ground-floor Plaza Restaurant was renamed the Edwardian Room. James S. Graham Jr. simultaneously renovated the State Apartment, and air conditioning was installed in each guest room. Childs became the Hotel Corporation of America (HCA) in 1956, and Hilton's lease was renewed indefinitely that year. HCA sold the Plaza to Lawrence Wien

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