Author Talk: Julie Satow – The Plaza: The Secret Life of America’s Most Famous Hotel

From the moment in 1907 when New York millionaire Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt strode through the Plaza Hotel’s revolving doors to become its first guest, to the afternoon in 2007 when a mysterious Russian oligarch paid a record price for the hotel’s largest penthouse, the 18-story white marble edifice at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street has radiated wealth and luxury. For some, the hotel evokes images of F. Scott Fitzgerald frolicking in the Pulitzer Fountain, or Eloise, the impish young guest who pours water down the mail chute. But the true stories captured in the newly-published THE PLAZA: The Secret Life of America’s Most Famous Hotel also include dark, hidden secrets.

Join DOROT to learn more from award-winning journalist Julie Satow, who not only pulls back the curtain on Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball and The Beatles’ first stateside visit — she also follows the money trail to reveal how, during the Great Depression, it was a handful of rich, dowager widows who were the financial lifeline that saved the hotel, and how foreign money and anonymous shell companies of today have transformed the iconic guest rooms into condominiums shielding ill-gotten gains. Don’t miss this special event!