The Plaza, the grand old dame at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, is going dark. The 1907 landmark will shut its doors for roughly four years beginning in 2027 so crews can restore its weathering marble façade — and if you have a stay or event booked there, it's time to make other plans.
Designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh in the French Renaissance style, the building pairs a rough, rusticated marble base with polished marble above. That rusticated stone is the problem: it erodes faster than you'd expect and typically needs restoration every two decades or so. The last major overhaul was in 2008, so the timing tracks — 19 years later, it's due again.
This isn't a quick scaffold-and-patch job. Both the façade and the interiors are protected landmarks at city and national level, and the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission is closely involved, meaning every repair has to preserve the historical detail. Allison Doyle Partners Architects, who worked on the earlier interior renovation, are leading the project, with HLZAE handling the masonry work.
Management says the scale of the works would have wrecked the guest experience anyway — imagine paying $1,500-plus a night to be woken by drilling outside your window. The closure has real consequences beyond tourism: the hotel is working with the Hotel & Gaming Trades Council to relocate its 378 staff during the shutdown, and couples like one bride who booked her wedding there last April are scrambling to find replacement venues.
If the Plaza was on your New York wishlist, all is not lost. The neighbourhood is thick with hotels from the same gilded era: the Sherry-Netherland sits right across the street, the Pierre is a couple of blocks up Fifth Avenue, and on the east side of Central Park you'll find the Lowell and the Carlyle, both equally storied. The Plaza itself expects to reopen around 2031, and given its track record of reinvention — from hosting the Beatles before their Ed Sullivan Show debut to inspiring Neil Simon's Plaza Suite and playing backdrop in Home Alone 2 — it will almost certainly be back in full glamour.
For now, consider this your nudge to book one of its neighbours, and to keep an eye on reopening dates if sleeping where Eloise roamed is still on your list.
