The Most Famous Hotel in America Ruined Almost Every Man Who OWNED It: The Plaza

The Most Famous Hotel in America Ruined Almost Every Man Who OWNED It: The Plaza The official story of the Plaza Hotel is a love story. A white palace on Fifth Avenue, where Alfred Vanderbilt signed the register first in 1907, where the Beatles waved from the windows, where Eloise ran the halls. But the paperwork tells a different story. According to accounts of the hotel's history, the builder who put it up was found in the bathtub of his own suite after the crash of 1929. Conrad Hilton bought it for less than it cost to build. In 1988 it sold for $407 million, the most ever paid for a hotel in the United States, and four years later the banks owned half of it. An Indian tycoon tried to sell it from a jail cell in Delhi. Nine hundred workers fought to keep it a hotel, and most of them lost. Now the facade has been declared unsafe, and the doors close in January 2027. And in 1988 one owner put the whole story into a single full-page letter in The New York Times. Chapters: 00:00 — Cold open 02:42 — ACT I — THE RISE 05:13 — ACT II — THE FACADE 09:55 — ACT III — THE CRACK 14:59 — ACT IV — THE RECKONING 19:21 — ACT V — THE AFTERMATH Source Material Visual material used in this production is obtained from publicly accessible archives, including Wikimedia Commons. Copyright & Fair Use Notice This channel incorporates copyrighted material under the principles of Fair Use as recognized by U.S. law. Under Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act, certain uses of copyrighted works such as for analysis, commentary, educational purposes, research, and reporting are permitted without prior authorization from the copyright holder. Sources Historic Hotels of America, The Plaza history — https://www.historichotels.org/us/hot... Mother Jones, How Trump Went Bust (timeline) — https://www.motherjones.com/politics/... Commercial Observer, The Long and Winding Ownership History of the Plaza Hotel — https://commercialobserver.com/2018/0... Hospitality Net / NYT, Accord Is Set to Save Rooms at the Plaza — https://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4... CBS New York, Plaza Hotel closing for 4-year renovation — https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/... #documentary #history #oldmoney #PlazaHotel