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TOMORROW THE masterpiece of New York hotel architecture, described modestly by its founder in 1907 as "a typical French house," will pass into the hands of an individual who sneezes at the typical.
Donald Trump's most recent acquisition - the yacht purchased for $29 million from the holdings of Adnan Khashoggi - features vanishing bars, solid gold sinks, a bulletproof sauna, and ceilings that slide open and shut like the doors of the Starship Enterprise.
By way of contrast, the charms of the Plaza Hotel are less showy. This is a shelter meant to soothe and cosset, not to dazzle. The famous Everett Shinn murals in the Oak Bar are as muted as lute music. The miniature marble fireplaces are mere accents in the choicest suites, proportioned as if they were built on a prairie. And the four naked caryatids representing the four seasons smile gently down on the tea-drinkers in the Palm Court.
"It looks just like the White House," marvels Bette Midler, playing a hick from the sticks in the farce "Big Business," as her limo glides up to the famous canopied entrance at the foot of Central Park (the famous canopy, the sharp-eyed new owners note, which shelters worn granite steps, chipped masonry and bare wires hanging from lights).
In a city where the ground shifts constantly under foot, the Plaza, like the Met or Macy's or Rockefeller Center, is one of the few institutions that New Yorkers depend upon to remain frozen in time and memory. Just as you always feel the burn on your tongue from your first roasted chestnut, the savor of hot chocolate served at a miniature pink marble table in the Palm Court lingers long beyond childhood. And later there is that first cocktail in the rich, leathery confines of the Oak Bar. (Am I dressed all right? Do I have enough cash?)
The best-case scenario for the old hotel is that the Plaza and the Trumps will be a match of grandiose history and grandiose ambition. The hotel, of course, is no more a "typical French house" than Trump is a typical builder from Queens.
But those guardians of old New York, who already have much to fear from the ground-churning, history-chomping Trump machine, now...