Martinis at the Restored Plaza Hotel, those poor TARP wives, and more...
Tomatoes everywhere know that there has always been something so special and so New York about walking into the lobby of the Plaza Hotel. And having martinis in the Oak Room Bar as you watch the Central Park horse carriages never got old. So like many New Yorkers,
The Three Tomatoes were dismayed when the Plaza was bought in 2004 and the owners announced that part of it would be converted to condominiums and retail stores. Well tomatoes, this week we got a grand tour of the new Plaza, in all its glorious restored architectural splendor. It is back and better than ever! And we'll tell you how you can take the free tour too. Plus we've posted some of our
tour photos . And our guest blogger,
PTA Mom writes at our web site this week,"
Thank Goodness We're Not TARP Wives". Hey among other things, we would have had to sneak into the Plaza for that martini in the Oak Bar. So read on.
"Give my liver to science and my heart to the Plaza." 
That's a quote attributed by Hemingway to his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald, perhaps over a drink in the Oak Room Bar, which is one of our favorite spots in NYC too. And we haven't been there since the Plaza was closed in 2004. Well this week we got a guided tour led by
Francis Morrone,an architectural historian, author, and a professor at NYU. Francis was asked by the current Plaza owners to lead these tours after he wrote a wonderful article about the restoration, shortly after the Plaza's reopening.
This terrific one hour tour starts on the new lower level concourse, which has very high end retail shops, all empty we might add. This level used to house Trader Vics, but was closed by
Donald Trump when he briefly owned the Plaza, because it was too "tacky". (Who knew that word was even in his vocabulary?) But the best part of the lower level is Vienna's famed Demel Bakery, its first USA store, where you can delight in their amazing desserts over a cappuccino or a glass of wine.
When you enter the Plaza from Fifth Avenue, the only public entrance now, the first thing you will notice that's different is the large and beautiful lobby on the left. For many years it was closed off and used for storage. But before that, in the days of NYC's famed nightclubs, it was home of the Persian Room where
Kay Thompson often performed. Kay is also the author of the famous
Eloise books, and a fabulous portrait of Eliose now graces one of the main hallways too. (And by the way, if you want to know what the Persian Room was like then, we've posted a terrific clip of a
Kay Thomspon performance in that very room at
3T.TV.
The other thing you will notice is the splendor of the Palm Court, which looks much the same but so much better. The reason? The new owners restored the "skylight" which had been covered over when Conrad Hilton owned the hotel in the 1940s to install air conditioning. The Palm Court is spectacular and is expected to re-open in the next couple of months. Tea anyone?
We also saw the room that was originally the "Men's Grill" and most recently was the short lived restaurant, One Central Park. It is still undetermined what that room will be become, but we hope it's something as special as the room deserves.
We even got to view the 59th Street side lobby which is now the entrance of the private condo residences and not opened to the general public. We ended the tour with a look at the beautifully restored Oak Room, again, the same but better. And then the best part!
We ended our tour and adjourned for a martini at the Oak Bar. We could feel the ghosts of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Presidents, the Beatles and so many others who have graced the Plaza. We've
posted our photos and the information about
the tour with Francis at our web site. Book it right now!
Thank Goodness We're Not TARP Wives 
PTA Mom writes this week, "Who knew being the wife of a top CEO who has received government bail-out money would be so stressful?" She had just finished reading the anonymous "
Confessions of a TARP Wife" in
Portfolio, and writes "Gosh are we grateful we're not one of those". Read more of her very funny musings in
Thank Goodness We're Not TARP Wives.
Here's to the glorious by-gone days when stocks were up, bail-outs meant loaning your kids some money, and those Plaza martinis went on expense accounts.
