Inside the Plaza by Ward Morehouse III

The delightful piano music of Franz Schubert.

It's been a wretched week.  Due to my lack of diligence my Quaker Sophie flew off and has not returned.  I'm afraid an owl got her.  Well, if one did, I promise you she didn't go down without a fight.  That owl will think twice before tackling a Quaker.  There's a reason why they're illegal in some states.

Hercule has been looking and calling for her.  Well, God has promised to restore the earth and I believe that includes his feathery creations.  I look forward to when the owl and the parrot can lie down together and be friends.

Enough of feeling sorry for myself.  Here's my review.



Inside the Plaza: An Intimate Portrait of the Ultimate Hotel by Ward Morehouse III

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Lately I have gotten interested in the historical hotels in New York. I had first read a couple of books about the Chelsea Hotel with all its hippy drippy occupants, plus its uncertain future.

Reading about the Plaza helped put the Chelsea in perspective. It seemed to me that you had to be pretty rich to live in the Chelsea, even if you were a drug addict, but now I understand that compared to the Plaza, the Chelsea would be vastly more affordable.

If I were to compare the two hotels, both of approximately the same age, both pieces of Art Deco architectural history, I'd say the Plaza was the good child who got a college education, married a doctor and has prospered ever since. The Chelsea was the rebellious child who ran off with her garage band boyfriend and has been living on that ragged edge of Bohemian disaster ever since.

While the Chelsea attracted the artsy, pop culture leaders and followers, the Plaza has always been classy and posh. Part of this would be location, but also darn, good business management by the various owners. The Chelsea had the son of the original owners manage it and he kept the reins loose and free and pretty much turned the hotel into the modern equivalent of an opium den, which may well have delighted the famous clientele that rented rooms there.

The Plaza was and is for the very, very rich. Not that it has not had its financial struggles, but so far it has been able to pull out of them.

Morehouse devotes much of the book to the business side of owning and managing a hotel like the Plaza, which I found a lot more interesting than I thought I would.

The rest is of course describing the famous people who have stayed there since its inception. Because his father, Ward Morehouse, a famous theatre critic and writer lived there with his second wife, he got to meet many of the clientele first hand. Consequently, we get more information about the people he has personally met and more second hand information about the rest.

Still, we get some fairly good stories about F. Scott Fitzgerald, the Beatles, the author of Eloise as well as several famous actors and singers who have since faded into the annals of time. Actually I found that interesting as well, learning about actors and singers I otherwise did not know about and then looking them up online to find out more about them.

Also, there were several movies that were filmed there, the most famous for contemporary audiences would be the Home Alone movies, but also Barefoot in the Park and a number of Hitchcock movies.

While the writing wasn't brilliant, it was good enough for me to give the book three stars. I liked it.



View all my reviews