AT THE PLAZA: IT WAS SUITE AND SOUR

Ups and downs at a classic New York hotel that even survived The Donald

It was a symbol of elegance even Donald Trump couldn’t quite kill. Princess Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy, ex-wife of a minor Russian noble, arrived with a staff of 10 and a pair of pet wolves. “Her Serene Highness” settled into a dozen rooms, paying $36,000 a year. For a while. Then the rubles ran out. She skipped out on a pile of unpaid bills.

When he bought Manhattan’s Plaza hotel in 1988 for a little over $400 million, he announced big plans. Trump would convert the top floor into multimillion-dollar condos. His wife at the time, Ivana, would completely redecorate. Workers started slapping gilt paint on everything.

“It was like a gold whorehouse,” the widow of a former manager observed. “I don’t see how you could have lived there without sunglasses, it was so bright.”

It was also a big, ugly failure. Within four years, the hotel went bankrupt. Soon, Trump was out, and all that glitters was sold. New buyers came and went. Currently, the government of Qatar owns New York’s legendary palace.

And yet the hotel has survived that too, barely, just as it has survived everything else.

“The Plaza,” by Julie Satow, tells the story, and it stars Edwardian millionaires and eccentric old widows, Truman Capote, and the Beatles.

The first Plaza went up in 1890, but within 15 years it had new owners, who immediately declared it a teardown. They hired the architect of the Dakota apartments to design a new hotel and scoured Europe for furnishings.

The best was barely good enough. Adjusted for inflation, nearly $3 million was spent just on linens; curtains ran almost $4,000 apiece. The glassware was crystal; the cutlery was silver.

When the new Plaza opened on Oct. 1, 1907, its first guest was the fabulously rich Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt. Diamond Jim Brady, escorting the actress Lillian Russell, followed. A wave of playboys and heiresses hurried to stay there.

By the end of the day, the hotel register read more like the social register.

Meanwhile, another new luxury waited outside: New York taxicabs, making their debut. Bright red and imported from France, they sported gray upholstery and drivers in matching uniforms. Hotel guests rode for free; regular New Yorkers had to pony up 30 cents for the first half mile.

When it came to its clientele, the hotel was accommodating, even indulgent. Princess Vilma LwoffParlaghy, ex-wife of a minor Russian noble, arrived with a staff of 10 and a pair of pet wolves. “Her Serene Highness” settled into a dozen rooms, paying $36,000 a year. For a while. Then the rubles ran out. She skipped out on a pile of unpaid bills.

For others, even Prohibition couldn’t stop the party. Guests fortified themselves at one of the nearby speakeasies, like ‘21,’ or bought a bottle from bellboys who always knew bootleggers. Sometimes the fun spilled out onto Fifth Ave. F. Scott Fitzgerald may have been the most famous guest to first jump into the fountain outside at Grand Army Plaza, but he probably wasn’t the last.

Then the crash came, and The Plaza nearly crashed with it. By 1932, half of the luxury rooms sat empty. The downstairs Grill Room was turned into a storage closet. The Rose Room was rented to a car dealership.

Keeping The Plaza going, barely, were “The Thirty-Nine Widows.” Extravagantly rich older women, they were permanent residents, so at least their checks were steady. Years later, when rent control arrived, the ladies weren’t such a bargain. In 1954, nearly 40 years after she had moved in, one woman was still in her suite. And who wouldn’t be, with views of Central Park and a rent of $200 a month?

A series of new owners put the hotel on better footing, and after World War II, tourists returned. The best publicity, though, came a decade later, courtesy of flamboyant nightclub entertainer Kay Thompson. As part of her act, she sometimes did an impression of a precocious little girl, partly inspired by her godchild, Liza Minnelli.

A friend encouraged Thompson to turn the character into a book. “Eloise” — who lived at The Plaza with a dog, her pet turtle and a nanny named Nanny — became an immediate sensation and invaluable advertising. The hotel’s grateful owners not only gave Thompson a free suite, but they also gave Eloise one, too. Oddly, the child never seemed to be home when fans came to visit it.

By the 1960s, The Plaza was hot. After they played “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964, the Beatles went there to sleep, or