Is the Plaza Hotel Haunted? Ghost Stories of New York's Grandest Hotel

The Plaza stands at Fifth Avenue and Central Park South like a white French chateau that wandered into Manhattan. It is a National Historic Landmark, the setting of countless films and weddings, and the most famous hotel name in haunted New York City.

Its ghost stories are quieter than its fame. There is no famous named spirit and no room you can book for a scare. What there is, is a scattering of guest reports of voices, doors and shadows, and a century of wealthy residents who lived and died in their suites, including the ‘Plaza widows’ still blamed when something goes wrong.

The ghosts of The Plaza

The voice behind the door

The Plaza’s best-known ghost story is an odd one, collected by Ranker from a guest from Maryland. Her family kept having trouble with the door of their room, even after staff moved them to other rooms, and at one point they found themselves locked in although the lock was clearly in the unlocked position. When her mother pounded on the door and called for help, a voice on the other side repeated her words back in a mocking tone.

It is a single family’s account, retold online, and nobody has explained it. But it is the story people mean when they ask whether the Plaza is haunted.

The shadow from the closet

The same family said that later in their stay they saw a shadowy figure come out of the closet, and they slept with the lights on for the rest of the night. Oyster’s round-up of haunted New York hotels adds general reports of disembodied voices, doors that stop opening and dark silhouettes in guest rooms.

Fannie Lowenstein and the Plaza widows

For decades the Plaza was home to a group of wealthy older women known as the Plaza widows, sometimes called the 39 Widows, permanent residents whose steady rent helped keep the hotel afloat through the Great Depression and the 1970s. The most notorious was Fannie Lowenstein, famous for her temper; one unverified story says that during a tantrum she relieved herself on the Palm Court carpet. The wine importer Skurnik, writing up the hotel’s history in 2019, says her ghost is still sometimes blamed when things go wrong.

Deaths in the suites

The Plaza has seen its share of real tragedy. During construction in July 1906, Michael Butler, a retired policeman hired to keep the peace between union ironworkers and non-union laborers, was struck on the head with a metal bolt and fell from the eighth floor to the sixth; he died in hospital, and his death was ruled an accident. In October 1929 developer Harry S. Black tried to drown himself in the bathtub of his Plaza suite, a few floors above the Oak Room; he was revived but died by suicide at his Long Island home in 1930. His partner Bernhard Beinecke died at 86 in his Plaza suite, and Clara Bell Walsh, one of the widows, died in hers in 1957. None of them has a ghost story attached, but they are the kind of history guests think of when the lights flicker.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• The original 1907 building: Ask for an upper floor in the Hardenbergh building rather than the 1921 annex if you want the oldest corridors.
• Guest room corridors: Where the family from Maryland described a door that locked them in and a voice that mocked them.
• The Palm Court: The tea room under its restored stained glass ceiling, and the scene of Fannie Lowenstein’s most famous tantrum.
• The Oak Room: The German Renaissance former bar, directly below the suite where Harry Black tried to take his life in 1929.

History of The Plaza

The first Plaza Hotel opened on the site on October 1, 1890, but never made money. In May 1902 a syndicate headed by Harry S. Black and Bernhard Beinecke, with John Warne Gates, bought it, tore it down and hired Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, architect of the Dakota, to design something grander. Work began in July 1905, and the new Plaza opened on October 1, 1907, at a cost of $12.5 million, well over the $8.5 million first estimate. Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt signed in as the first guest; eight years later he died on the Lusitania.

Fred Sterry ran the hotel as its first managing director, and a Warren and Wetmore annex opened on October 14, 1921. Gates died in 1911 and his funeral was held at the Plaza. The Great Depression hit the founders hard: Black’s attempt on his life in his suite came in October 1929, and he died in 1930.

The Plaza passed through many owners: Hilton from 1943, A. M. Sonnabend from 1953, Western International (later Westin) from 1974, Donald Trump, who bought it in March 1988 and put Ivana Trump in charge of its renovation, and a partnership of City Developments Limited and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. El Ad Properties bought it in 2005 and Fairmont has managed it since then. A renovation completed in 2008 turned much of the building into 181 private condominiums and left 282 hotel rooms, down from a peak of more than 800. Sahara India Pariwar bought it in 2012, and Katara Hospitality has owned it since 2018.

The exterior became a New York City landmark in December 1969, the building was added to the National Register in 1978 and named a National Historic Landmark in June 1986, and the interiors were landmarked in 2005. F. Scott Fitzgerald set scenes of The Great Gatsby here, and the hotel appears in films including Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Have afternoon tea in the Palm Court before you check in, and look up at the stained glass ceiling, removed in the 1940s and restored in the 2000s.
• Ask for an upper floor in the original 1907 building when you book, and repeat the request at check-in.
• Stroll Central Park after dark from the Grand Army Plaza fountain in front of the hotel.
• Room rates are among the highest in the city, so watch for winter offers.
• Combine your stay with a night at the Algonquin Hotel for a second, more literary set of ghost stories.

More haunted hotels nearby

• The Algonquin Hotel, Midtown: Dorothy Parker and the Round Table, a short walk away
• The Bowery Hotel, East Village: elevators that act up at 1 a.m.
• The Historic Old Bermuda Inn, Staten Island: a Civil War widow still waiting at the window
• Haunted places in New York City: more ghost stories across the five boroughs
• Haunted hotels in New York
• Haunted hotels in NYC

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• Wikipedia: Plaza Hotel
• Skurnik: Spirits and specters at the Plaza Hotel (2019)
• Ranker: Creepy haunted hotels in New York City
• Oyster: The most haunted hotels in New York (2017)

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