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No more gentility at The Plaza

Ellis Henican

April 6, 2005

Yitzhak Tshuva isn't actually threatening to use a wrecking ball on one of the city's grandest landmarks. But he might as well be.

If the hard-eyed Israeli businessman gets his way at Fifth Avenue and Central Park South, he will have taken the Plaza Hotel away from the people of New York.

He will have turned this beloved public building into yet another megabucks condo-fort, flipped at jaw-dropping prices to Euro-fat fly-in investors and OPEC-pumped Saudi sheiks.

Once and for all, he will have chased away the ghosts of "The Great Gatsby," "North by Northwest," "The Way We Were" and spunky 6-year-old Plaza cutie "Eloise," replacing a century's worth of splendid New York symbols with yet another tacky temple to shortsighted greed. Not even former Plaza owner Donald Trump dared do that.

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And here's the part I really hate: If Tshuva succeeds with his planned desecration of the city's only National Historic Landmark hotel, no self-respecting New Yorker will ever again be willing to say: "Meet me inside the Plaza."

Who'd want to be seen there, whatever flashy retailers Tshuva ultimately lures to his proposed Plaza strip mall and whatever trivial number of hotel rooms he ultimately retains on the building's dark 58th Street side?

That time-honored New York expression will be replaced by an utterance of a very different kind: "Sorry. Private residence. You can't come in."

You certainly never heard Neil Scott Johnson talking like that.

A Plaza doorman for the past seven years, Johnson is a relative newcomer to the most famous hotel entrance in New York. But he has the old Plaza ebullience down pat.

He was in his regal uniform yesterday, standing half a block from his usual post, rallying at the evening rush hour with a massive crowd of other Plaza workers and their supporters.

"It's a great job," he said over a roaring crowd. "I get to welcome the world to New York. I get to open the door for the best guests in the city, usher all these people into the greatest hotel on the planet."

Who said job satisfaction is a thing of the past?

Not to Johnson it's not. Or to Plaza gift shop clerk Luz Rodriguez. Or to third-generation Plaza worker Salvatore LaPena. They - and 897 other unionized Plaza workers - are locked in this epic, last-ditch effort to rally the city's political officials, change Tshuva's mind and save their jobs.

They've even gotten support from longtime Plaza guests.

"I spend two months a year at the Plaza, room 505," said Lilita Sale, an Oregon dentist's wife who was standing outside with the rallying workers yesterday. "I come for two weeks at a time and see 19 shows. I've been doing that for 10 years now. And I can tell you, there is no place that more symbolizes the elegance, the grace, the beauty of New York. One man should not be allowed to destroy a landmark like this, any more than you would allow someone to go into the Louvre, cut up the Mona Lisa and sell it in little pieces. It's a very undignified death."

Tshuva couldn't be reached yesterday. But his purchase price, $675 million, is the most ever paid for a hotel in New York: $836,431 a room.

His public-relations firm put out a written statement in response to the rally and to a City Council proposal that would limit hotel-to-condo conversions: The developer will "preserve and restore the exterior of the elegant 1907 landmark. ... When the renovation is complete and the Plaza opens, it will still be a hotel. People who have enjoyed staying at the Plaza over the years will still be able to stay there."

If they can find their way to the dark back tier. And if they can sidestep the condo guards.

Representatives of the New York Hotel Trades Council say legislation is crucial, and they remain highly skeptical of Tshuva's plans.

"We've lost 10 hotels to condo developers in the past year," said council president Peter Ward.

They include the Stanhope, the Mayflower, the Olcott, the Intercontinental Central Park South and the Gramercy Park.

"With the Plaza," Ward said, "it's 11. That's 2,000 jobs. Thousands of rooms. We'll lose many more if something isn't done."

"They all have great locations," said hotel-trades spokesman John Turchiano. "They don't have to kick out apartment tenants. They don't have to kick out office renters. The only people they have to kick out are the workers. They call themselves developers. Destroyers is what they are."

Now will someone please explain all this to Eloise!