How ridiculous it is the way one can feel proprietary toward a landmark, toward an institution. A giant sparkly maze, the Plaza first broke into my consciousness with Eloise — so it blew my young mind when my father took me through the hotel’s lobby to see her portrait. The correspondence between a picture book — up to that time always unreal and made up — and an actual place, was like a hole opened between two worlds I’d imagined forever separate.
And then, not much later, I was introduced, in the basement of the Plaza, to another kind of fantasy, one that haunts me to this day: the Polynesian Restaurant. Much has been said about Trader Vic’s, here and there, but let me tell you there was no more beautiful room in New York in 1978, I’m sure of it. Glass floats sparkled in fishnets draped over palm frond roofs, while the faces of customers glowed in the warm light of candles and the little braziers of the pupu platters. The whole place smelled simultaneously of Crab Rangoon, pineapple, and the massive Gardenias which floated in many of the drinks.
In later days the Plaza became the site of countless adolescent misadventures: the drinking age was non-existent in Trader Vic’s (perhaps they were subject to Polynesian law?) and many a blurry evening was spent slurping from ceramic bowls, then being sick in the bushes of Central Park or a flossy doorway on Madison Avenue. I was lucky enough to attend several balls in the Plaza as well, the chief attraction of which was not the dancing but sneaking around the halls of the hotel in stocking feet (uncomfortable dress pumps) poaching utensils and drink from room-service trays left outside the rooms.
In Breakfast at Tiffany ’s Holly Golightly copes with her worst moods by drinking her coffee in front of Tiffany’s, basking in its solidity and timelessness. The Plaza filled the same role for me: unchanging, beautiful, it was a place that promised never to change, to always smell good, to always shine. To just walk in, through the heat lamps over the steps in wintertime, was calming. Perhaps I couldn’t afford a drink, maybe I’d never check in, but it was still there to be admired, a beacon of civilization.
I still have a tiny saltshaker somewhere, and now that the forces of evil have decided to turn this palace of wonders into even more luxury condominiums, I’m not giving it back. A pox on them all. Amanda Park Taylor
And then, not much later, I was introduced, in the basement of the Plaza, to another kind of fantasy, one that haunts me to this day: the Polynesian Restaurant. Much has been said about Trader Vic’s, here and there, but let me tell you there was no more beautiful room in New York in 1978, I’m sure of it. Glass floats sparkled in fishnets draped over palm frond roofs, while the faces of customers glowed in the warm light of candles and the little braziers of the pupu platters. The whole place smelled simultaneously of Crab Rangoon, pineapple, and the massive Gardenias which floated in many of the drinks.
In later days the Plaza became the site of countless adolescent misadventures: the drinking age was non-existent in Trader Vic’s (perhaps they were subject to Polynesian law?) and many a blurry evening was spent slurping from ceramic bowls, then being sick in the bushes of Central Park or a flossy doorway on Madison Avenue. I was lucky enough to attend several balls in the Plaza as well, the chief attraction of which was not the dancing but sneaking around the halls of the hotel in stocking feet (uncomfortable dress pumps) poaching utensils and drink from room-service trays left outside the rooms.
In Breakfast at Tiffany ’s Holly Golightly copes with her worst moods by drinking her coffee in front of Tiffany’s, basking in its solidity and timelessness. The Plaza filled the same role for me: unchanging, beautiful, it was a place that promised never to change, to always smell good, to always shine. To just walk in, through the heat lamps over the steps in wintertime, was calming. Perhaps I couldn’t afford a drink, maybe I’d never check in, but it was still there to be admired, a beacon of civilization.
I still have a tiny saltshaker somewhere, and now that the forces of evil have decided to turn this palace of wonders into even more luxury condominiums, I’m not giving it back. A pox on them all. Amanda Park Taylor
