quote:
Is New York City putting its worst foot forward in its bid to host the 2012 Olympic Summer Games?
Lowdown hears that members of the finicky International Olympic Committee - who are also being wooed by Madrid, London, Paris and Moscow - are staying at the Plaza Hotel during an official scouting visit later this month.
Unfortunately, the storied hotel, where guests pay up to $1,100 a night for a luxury suite, is starting to resemble a Motel 6.
"They should replace the concierge desk with a complaints bureau," reports a Lowdown spy. "They're cannibalizing the place and not buying any equipment or resources."
The Plaza is scheduled to shut down next month - after the IOC visit - for two years of renovations.
But maybe that's not soon enough. Guests are suffering such indignities as filthy rooms, bathrooms and hallways; empty minibars; paper napkins and mismatched plates at the ritzy Palm Court, and even a shortage of basic utensils like teaspoons.
What's more, most of the items on the room service menu are no longer available, and the once-posh Oyster Bar is now serving strictly pub food.
But perhaps most unnerving, Lowdown hears, is that when guests check out, the unused portions of their complimentary bottles of lotion and shampoo are taken downstairs, emptied and blended into other bottles.
Informed of the litany of complaints, a Plaza rep would offer only: "The Plaza Hotel is at a historic transition period. The staff of the Plaza continues to do its best to deliver services befitting the hotel's legacy with all available resources."
Hotel workers' union spokesman John Turchiano told Lowdown, "It's obvious the new owners are milking the building for everything they can get."
S'tan-- Sorry for resuscitating this thread, but (from today's Daily News) it appears there're only a few nails left for this coffin. What a long, sad, death. Why don't they just bring out the wrecking ball already?