The Plaza Hotel, New York City
One of the most well-known hotels in New York City, the Plaza Hotel, is famed world-wide for its luxury suites, as well as classic architectural style. The Plaza Hotel is located on 768 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, New York City.
Construction of the hotel originally started in 1883, on the site of the former New York Skating Club. The construction company ran out of money, leading to the New York Life Insurance Company deciding to foreclose and hire the greatest architects of the era, McKim, Mead & White, to complete the construction of the hotel, which was finally opened to the public on the 1st of October, 1890.
Unfortunately the first hotel was far too small to be able to keep up with interest from guests, and the hotel was demolished in 1905 by its new owners, Fred Sterry, Harry S. Black, and the German financier Bernhard Beinecke, all of whom envisioned a much larger hotel. Construction began on the new hotel, a 19 story building in French Renaissance inspired chateau-style building by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh. The new hotel was c
onstructed in just 27 months, at huge expense, costing $12.5 million at that time.
The new Plaza Hotel opened on the 1st of October, 1907, with rooms costing just $2.50 a night, equivalent to $67.22 in 2018. The same room cost over $1,000 a night in 2001. The hotel proved to be so popular with guests that a 300-room annex was added from 1920-1921 along 58th Street.
There are a number of facilities available to guests of the hotel, including a butler on every floor, baby-sitting, a shopping centre, as well as numerous meeting rooms, managed by CPS Events.
The hotel has been featured commonly in popular culture, with a number of famous novels using the hotel as a meeting point for characters, such as Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan confronting one another in a suite in The Plaza Hotel in the novel The Great Gatsby.
The hotel also features in over 20 films, notably Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which focuses around the main character staying in the hotel by himself. The hotel is also featured on a number of popular television series, including Friends, as well as a number of episodes of The Sopranos.
Planning a Relaxing Weekend at the Pub
Modern life can be very stressful, and for that reason, we tend to cling to any moment when we can take a break, and get away from the things which keep us so busy. Heading away to a countryside pub for the weekend is an excellent way of unwinding, but, like most things, the experience tends to be that little bit better, if you do some advance planning, to make sure that everything goes smoothly. In this article, we’ll give you some tested tips and advice, to help make your next trip run like clockwork.
Choosing the Best Place
As tempting as it can be to head off and explore further away areas of the country, it’s often better to choose somewhere which isn’t that far from where you live. This might not feel much like a holiday, but it also reduces the amount of time that you will have to spend travelling before your trip actually begins. Open the map function on TripAdvisor and see what there is in your local area; you may well be surprised by how much choice there is.
While you should consider the reviews which you find, remember that most B&Bs and pubs with rooms don’t set out to offer luxury standards of accommodation and that not everyone takes this into account when they are writing reviews, so take the most negative ones that you find with a pinch of salt.
What to Do When You’re There
If you are going to be spending more than a day in your destination, then take a look at what activities are on offer, and think about how you’re going to get to them. If you don’t drive and are going to rely on taxis to get you to and from the pub, then your expenses might start to mount up more quickly than you expect! If food and drink is your favourite thing, then the English countryside is genuinely a great area to visit; there are all sorts of cafés, pubs and farm shops to explore, many of which offer food for taking away, which you can continue to enjoy when you get home.
Remember that the infrastructure in the countryside tends to be a bit more basic. Public transport will stop earlier in the day, and access to medical facilities doesn’t tend to be as convenient. For this reason, it’s worth having an app such as livi.co.uk on standby in case of any problems.
A little bit of preparation is all that it takes for an enjoyable and relaxing trip to the English countryside, which will help to relax you, and set you up for whatever challenges may lie ahead in the rest of the year.