As per the original post on this topic: The PLAZA! Bloomberg did something sort of right, he 'Saved" the Plaza -- under enormous pressure from hotel emplyee unions!
This is a funny article with just the right dose of mordant wit:
http://www.curbed.com/archives/2005/04/14/breaking_plaza_hotel_saved_sort_of.php
The lobby I'm betting will re-open as a trashy 1920s theme park. Cornball moms and daughters will continue going to the Palm Court to have debutante moments. Wannabe hookers may nostalgically trawl in the Oak Bar for out of towners. The rich johns will jaw their tobacco-flavoured chewing gum and drink themselves senseless on $20. JDs "just like in the old days." Tourists will stomp through the lobby and trash the rest rooms. A great NY institution will live on, flattened by homogenized memory and congealed in lucite.
Farewell Charming Old NY!! I am going back to the other desert, the one with the other kind of toad. After I dance around Bergdorf's tonight... helping to scatter the ashes of a rich old (dead) bitch, allegedly sprinkled in the Delman shoe salon.
Ever onward and ... sideways.