Ode to the Plaza Hotel

Perched large and soaring on the crisp, spacious, green-fringed corner of 59^th and 5^th is The Plaza hotel. The Plaza! Do you remember it? It was built in 1906, full of gorgeous nooks and crannies, by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh in his signature florid, Beaux-Arts Parisian style and was quite a confection: Gilded ceilings, marble walls, carved, polished bronze fittings, exaggerated rococo garnishes on everything. Big, but not big-big and oppressive like The Waldorf, there were exactly 800 guest rooms, suites and half-suites of all sorts of splendor. Just about every magnificent, spectacular, stellar, saucy person you could possibly think of spun through that glossy team of plate-glass doors and called it home, sweet home for a while. Or at least got drunk at the Oak Bar now and again.

I adore the Plaza. It is the Elizabeth Taylor of hotels. Due to an obsessive period in my sophomore year of high school, I have every corner of it laid out in my brain like an etched-out treasure map: Perched large and soaring on the crisp, spacious, green-fringed corner of 59^th and 5^th, it was built in 1906 by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh in his signature florid, Beaux-Arts Parisian style. Gilded ceilings, marble walls, carved, polished bronze fittings, exaggerated rococo garnished everything. Big, but not big-big and oppressive like The Waldorf, there were exactly 800 guest rooms, suites and half-suites of all sorts of splendor. Just about every magnificent, stellar person you could possibly think of spun through that glossy team of plate-glass doors and called it home for a while.

Liz and Dick always stayed there when they bombed into NYC like a couple of glamorous, drunk greek gods, had their own private set of five connected suites—one whole one for her wardrobe. Whenever they checked two bottles each of Dom Perignon, Beefeater Gin, and, well I don’t remember the list exactly, it was EXTENSIVE, and DETAILED and HUMONGOUS, was to be  laid out on ice for them, and to be refreshed daily. As in new bottle every day, people. Every day!

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor lived there for a spell, and it was where he wrote his crazy pretentious memoirs, A King’s Story, while the immaculate Walli swanned around doing god knows what, perfectly.

A random sampling of anecdotes: When it first opened it’s doors, Papa Vanderbilt (Im calling him papa because I don’t remember exactly which one it was—some big daddy type) kept his mistress here, while his wife lived literally a BLOCK away in the building that was to become Bergdorf Goodman. People were so RICH back then! She lived in BERGDORF GOODMAN. My god.  And then in 1920, Zelda Fitzgerald, who lived with Scott in the Biltmore but drank at the Plaza, got wasted on too much gin and jumped into the Hastings fountain out front, and splashed around in her brand new Jean Patou dress. Crazy lady! The Beatles took over an entire wing on the 15^th floor in 1964, when they held that famous press conference (the one you’re always seeing flashbacks of on television) in the Persian Room.  When it got dark out, the four of them would sneak out to the Playboy club, which was around the block back then.

Truman Capote’s masked Black and White ball, a.k.a. “The Party of the Century”—an event so big and illustrious, I cannot even begin to start­you really should just go out and buy that great book on it, read about it in there—was held in the Palm Court on November 28, 1966, and John Knowles described as being like Versailles, 1788, which I though was a lovely, writerly way of putting it.

my bob dylan walking tour, for the world to see

Bob Dylan walking tour:

11 west 4th street Gerde’s folk city: Bob played his first professional gig here on April 11, 1961, opening for john lee hooker in 1961. Fun note: Bruce Springsteen played his first show right across the street at the now defunct The Bottom Line.


Washington Square Hotel (previously Hotel Earle): lived here for a while. Room 305. It was a hovel then but it’s very fancy now. Joan Baez called it “that crummy hotel over washington square” in her song Diamonds and Rust about Dylan. Bitch! Other notables who bunked there: Dylan Thomas and Ernest Hemingway
**Fun Fact: across the street from it is the largest tree in all of Washington square park that was the site of the last public execution in NYC. TK ear. Hung from a branch. Thee cut the branch down a while ago, but the tree is still there.


161 west 4th street: this is where Suze Rotolo and bob lived together during their tempestuous relationship. Top floor apartment. When they shot the cover of Don Hunstein, they walked just across the street and shot it walking down Jones street, right across the way. It was meant to recreate a famous shot of James Dean, but with a girl.

The MacDougal street stretch:
Café Wha? Where he plays his first open mic the second he landed in New York city at the age of 19. It was a favorite haunt of his. Funy fact. Manny Roth, who owned it is the uncle of David Lee Roth.

Kettle of fish & The Gaslight 114 macdougal.gaslight café and 116 MacDougal Street He loved this place! Half of the stories about Bob in the early 60s took place in one of these adjoining venues. Gaslight was where you sang, Fish was where you drank. The gaslight it’s most notable because it’s where he did his first version of hard rain’s gonna fall. The church on Houston and Sullivan: according to Jean Stein’s Edie: An American Girl the night Edie met Bob and Bob Neuwerth down the street at Kettle of fish, then walked in the snow around to Houston to look at the Christmas scenes.


The Commons Coffee House MacDougal, Near Minetta Lane
A sprawling basement club/coffee house where Bob wrote Blowin’ in the Wind.

114 Macdougal street Kettle of Fish: next door to Gaslight, where they would come to drink becuase Gaslight didn’t have liquor license. According to Edie: An American Girl by Jean Stein, Bob Neuwirth said this is where he and Bob apparently first met Edie Sedgwick. The three of them got drinks and had a great time, and afterwards walked down to look at the chuhrch on MacDougal and Houston in the snow. Loveliest of all memories, the three of them linked arm in arm, right before Christmas, looking at Christmas lights and having fun. It was also apparently where Any Warhol and Bob fought over Edie, AND where Bob first (and last) met Jimi Hendrix and the two of them were so stoned that all they did was giggle at each other.


502 Park Avenue: The Delmonico Hotel
Here’s where Bob met the Beatles! If anyone’s ever seen Don’t look back, it was really awkward. Until they all smoked pot and calmed down and started giggling (see: Bob meets Jimi Hendrix, above.)


82 University Place Cedar Tavern Allan Ginsburg Gregory Corso and Jack Kerouac hung out here, as did Bob. Bobs other half, Bob Neuwirth (who really was the one who had a big love affair with die Sedgwick) met DA Pennebaker here to plan out Don’t Look back. mostly this is a must see because awesome Liam Clancy, of the singing Clancy Brothers quite possibly the most fun person of the ‘60s, was interviewed here for No Direction Home, drinking a billion pints of ale, breaking out into random song here and there, and thumping his hand on the bar for emphasis when he ants to make a point. He’s the best!

92-94 MacDougal Street. In September 1969 bob and his wife Sara “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” Lownds moved their five kids into this huge brownstone. Then AJ Weberman (who Rolling Stone magazine once called “the king of all Dylan nuts) took it upon himself to become Dylan’s garbologist (Weberman’s own term) and went through their trash every day and liked to protest outside his house… just protest. For him being Dylan and all. Bob got into a physical fight with him one night outside the house. Then they moved elsewhere.

32 West 8th street 8th street bookstore: where Versailles clothing is now—bob met Allen Ginsburg here in 1964.

147 Bleeker Street: The Bitter End bar In 1975, when he was splitting with his mysterious wife Sara, he wanted to get it on again, in the summer of 1975 he began to hang out here with Neuwurth and played with Patti Smith, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot before kicking off the rolling thunder tour.



Washington Square Park: In his early years, Bob hung out here so much he’s kind if become the patron saint of the place.  Creepy fact: The park was originally a marsh surrounding Minetta Brook, in the early years of New York this area was used as a graveyard for slaves and yellow fever victims, a dueling ground and a place of execution. Near the northwest corner can be found the Hanging Tree, perhaps the oldest tree in Manhattan and Rose Butler was hanged here in 1820, the last person in New York State to be executed for arson.
Izzy Young’s Folklore Center

Site of the San Remo
93 MacDougal Street (corner): Watch out! William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Miles Davis, Jackson Pollock, W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, James Baldwin, William Styron. And of course Bob. They all came here to drink.