New York’s Plaza Hotel is a twenty-storey building extending along Central Park and Fifth Avenue. It features fountains and statues commemorating American history and Roman architecture and deities. It has one of the most expensive rooms in the world: the Plaza Royal Suite that at $40,000 a night is still almost always booked. Yet the Plaza is persistently unprofitable, and has had many owners!
FAME NOT FORTUNE
In the late 19th century, a skating club was demolished to construct a hotel. But it turned out to be too small. $12.5 million were invested to rebuild it to resemble a French chateau. The Plaza opened in 1907 as a hotel and city residence for the rich. A room cost under three dollars a night (around seventy in today’s term.) Now, the same room costs over one thousand dollars.
IMAGINE
As the 20th century advanced, the Plaza Hotel consolidated its reputation as the place to party with celebrities. Marilyn Monroe gave her first press conference at the Plaza, during which the strap of her dress strategically broke. When The Beatles first came to America they stayed here. John Lennon and Yoko Ono later frequenting its Oyster Bar. Kay Thompson, the creator of popular children’s character Eloise, lived at the Plaza for many years with an entourage of pets. She was evicted in the 1980s by its new owner, Donald Trump.
TRUMP LOVE
Yes, even Trump fell for its charms. He bought the Plaza in 1988, making the extraordinary claim that it was an act of love and not money; he called it “the Mona Lisa,” spent millions on refurbishment, installed his wife, Ivana Trump, as president of the hotel, married his subsequent wife Marla Maples there in front of one thousand five hundred guests, and filed the hotel for bankruptcy in 1992. Three years on, Trump sold his stake in the company to foreign investors.
shine on!
Still, the Plaza partied on, although behind the scenes there was more scandal. Finally, in 2018 after years of uncertainty, Shahal Khan, a wealthy Dubai investor, and Kamran Hakim, a major New York City landlord, came to an agreement to purchase a majority share of the property for six hundred million dollars. It seems that even in the age of fast profit, the Plaza shines on as a symbol of glamour and decadence.
Tipping rules in the us
At New York’s luxury hotel The Plaza, guests pay thousands of dollars to enjoy luxurious surroundings and receive an impeccable and highly personalised service from the staff. Yet while employees working in such establishments usually receive a higher wage than those working in a typical bar or restaurant in America, their livelihood still depends on the tip they receive. To find out more, we spoke to Alejandro García, who works at The Plaza. He explained that tipping is not an extra in the US, but an essential part of a waiter’s salary.
Alejandro García (American accent): Unlike a lot of other countries, who [which] are not accustomed to tipping, in the United States a lot of the service employees, specifically bartenders, waiters and other staff, they actually depend on tips. So, there’s a minimum wage. [But] when you work in the service industry, specifically food and beverage, you actually get paid less than that, because the government expects that the majority of your income will come from tips.
AMERICAN CULTURE
According to Alejandro, in New York City you should even leave a tip when the service is bad. You can leave it in cash, ask the waiter to include it or leave a note on the bill. Alejandro explains what the tip is for.
Alejandro García: It’s supposed to be a representation or a reflection of the service that you’ve [been] provided. Throughout the United States, different states, different cities have different tip cultures. In a city like New York, minimum should be fifteen per cent, and that really means that service was at the bare minimum – almost bad! Eighteen per cent is the norm. Good service is twenty per cent. That’s more or less the normal standard of any restaurant that is recognised or a fine dining restaurant. As well as anything that you want to leave after that to recognise service.
BAD KARMA
Not leaving a sufficient tip is a reflection of cultural ignorance, says Alejandro. He explained that while establishments have different rules, a customer’s failure to tip would attract attention.
Alejandro García: Every establishment has its own rules. Some restaurants will pay staff members per day to come and work, a hundred dollars a day, plus whatever they make on tips. Other restaurants will literally just pay them their minimum wage. So you will definitely get a lot of commentary behind the scenes. Anybody who comes to visit a country, [who] was able to get a visa, book a room ... How do they not understand how the tipping culture works?
ON COMMISSION
In New York, waiting staff can make a lot of money. The more a customer is persuaded to spend, the more the waiter receives as a tip. We asked Alejandro how much a waiter could earn in the Big Apple.
Alejandro García: The salary here in New York is much higher than in other cities just because the pricing is higher. You’re looking at at least making four thousand dollars a month before tax. In [At] the really high-end establishments, the hotels like the Peninsula, the Mandarin are considered high-end and also are union shops, which means that the base salary for the staff is much higher than normal, you’re looking at making over a hundred thousand dollars a year.
THE ROYAL PLAZA SUITE
At $40,000 a night, the Royal Plaza Suite is one of the most expensive rooms in the world. But what do you get for your money?
- A 4,400 square foot, three-bedroom suite with pillows based on the guest’s preferences.
- Access through a private elevator.
- A dining room that seats twelve plus a state-of-the-art kitchen with a private chef.
- ’Powder rooms’ (bathrooms) with gold-plated fixtures with hand-laid mosaic Italian tile floors.
- A private gym with a personal trainer.
- A study with a collection of books selected by Assouline Publishing, a luxury book publisher.
- The adjoining master bathroom has a secret panel in the wall in case guests need to make a quick exit.