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Loyalty business model

The loyalty business model is a business model used in strategic management in which company resources are employed so as to increase the loyalty of customers and other stakeholders in the expectation that corporate objectives will be met or surpassed. A typical example of this type of model is: quality of product or service leads to customer satisfaction, which leads to customer loyalty, which leads to profitability.

The service quality model
A model by Kaj Storbacka, Tore Strandvik, and Christian Grönroos (1994), the service quality model, is more detailed than the basic loyalty business model but arrives at the same conclusion. In it, customer satisfaction is first based on a recent experience of the product or service. This assessment depends on prior expectations of overall quality compared to the actual performance received. If the recent experience exceeds prior expectations, customer satisfaction is likely to be high. Customer satisfaction can also be high even with mediocre performance quality if the customer's expectations are low, or if the performance provides value (that is, it is priced low to reflect the mediocre quality). Likewise, a customer can be dissatisfied with the service encounter and still perceive the overall quality to be good. This occurs when a quality service is priced very high and the transaction provides little value.

This loyalty business model then looks at the strength of the business relationship; it proposes that this strength is determined by the level of satisfaction with recent experience, overall perceptions of quality, customer commitment to the relationship, and bonds between the parties. Customers are said to have a "zone of tolerance" corresponding to a range of service quality between "barely adequate" and "exceptional". A single disappointing experience may not significantly reduce the strength of the business relationship if the customer's overall perception of quality remains high, if switching costs are high, if there are few satisfactory alternatives, if they are committed to the relationship, and if there are bonds keeping them in the relationship. The existence of these bonds acts as an exit barrier. There are several types of bonds, including: legal bonds (contracts), technological bonds (shared technology), economic bonds (dependence), knowledge bonds, social bonds, cultural or ethnic bonds, ideological bonds, psychological bonds, geographical bonds, time bonds, and planning bonds.

This model then examines the link between relationship strength and customer loyalty. Customer loyalty is determined by three factors: relationship strength, perceived alternatives and critical episodes. The relationship can terminate if:
 * 1) the customer moves away from the company's service area,
 * 2) the customer no longer has a need for the company's products or services,
 * 3) more suitable alternative providers become available,
 * 4) the relationship strength has weakened,
 * 5) the company handles a critical episode poorly,
 * 6) unexplainable change of price of the service provided.

The final link in the model is the effect of customer loyalty on profitability. The fundamental assumption of all the loyalty models is that keeping existing customers is less expensive than acquiring new ones. It is claimed by Reichheld and Sasser (1990) that a 5% improvement in customer retention can cause an increase in profitability between 25% and 85% (in terms of net present value) depending upon the industry. However, Carrol and Reichheld (1992) dispute these calculations, claiming that they result from faulty cross-sectional analysis.

According to Buchanan and Gilles (1990), the increased profitability associated with customer retention efforts occurs because:
 * The cost of acquisition occurs only at the beginning of a relationship: the longer the relationship, the lower the amortized cost.
 * Account maintenance costs decline as a percentage of total costs (or as a percentage of revenue).
 * Long term customers tend to be less inclined to switch and also tend to be less price sensitive. This can result in stable unit sales volume and increases in sales volume.
 * Long term customers may initiate free word of mouth promotions and referrals.
 * Long term customers are more likely to purchase ancillary products and high-margin supplemental products.
 * Long term customers tend to be satisfied with their relationship with the company and are less likely to switch to competitors, making market entry or competitors' market share gains difficult.
 * Regular customers tend to be less expensive to service because they are familiar with the processes involved, require less "education," and are consistent in their order placement.
 * Increased customer retention and loyalty makes the employees' jobs easier and more satisfying. In turn, happy employees feed back into higher customer satisfaction in a virtuous circle.

For this final link to hold, the relationship must be profitable. Striving to maintain the loyalty of unprofitable customers is not a viable business model. That is why it is important for marketers to assess the profitability of each of its clients (or types of clients), and terminate those relationships that are not profitable. In order to do this, each customer's "relationship costs" are compared to their "relationship revenue". A useful calculation for this is the patronage concentration ratio. This calculation is hindered by the difficulty in allocating costs to individual relationships and the ambiguity regarding relationship cost drivers.

Expanded models
Virtuous Circle Schlesinger and Heskett (1991) added employee loyalty to the basic customer loyalty model. They developed the concepts of "cycle of success" and "cycle of failure". In the cycle of success, an investment in your employees’ ability to provide superior service to customers can be seen as a "virtuous circle". Effort spent in selecting and training employees and creating a corporate culture in which they are empowered can lead to increased employee satisfaction and employee competence. This will likely result in superior service delivery and customer satisfaction. This in turn can create customer loyalty, improved sales levels, and higher profit margins. Some of these profits can be reinvested in employee development thereby initiating another iteration of a virtuous cycle.

Fred Reichheld (1996) expanded the loyalty business model beyond customers and employees. He looked at the benefits of obtaining the loyalty of suppliers, employees, bankers, customers, distributors, shareholders, and the board of directors.

Duff and Einig (2015) expanded the model to debt issuers and credit ratings agencies to investigate what role commitment plays in issuer-CRA relations.

Satisfaction-profit-chain (SPC) model
The satisfaction-profit chain is a model that theoretically develops linkages and then enables researchers to test them statistically for a firm using customer data (both from surveys and other sources). The satisfaction-profit-chain was tested in the context of banking industry showing that product and services improvements indeed were associated with customer perceptions, which led to beneficial customer behaviors such as repurchase, and desirable financial outcomes such as increased sales and profitability The satisfaction-profit-chain, as a methodology for managing customer loyalty and firm profitability, is also applicable in business-to-business markets, irrespective of whether the B2B firm sells goods and/or services.

The satisfaction-profit-chain refers to a chain of effects whereby increased performance on key attributes leads to improvements in overall satisfaction, which in turn affects loyalty intentions and behaviors. The increased customer loyalty is shown to affect short- and long-term financial outcomes including sales, profitability, and stock price. More recently, some studies show that especially in the context of services such as retailing and financial services, employee satisfaction can play a critical role in enhancing customer loyalty. This happens because both customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction can mutually reinforce each other, and promote stronger customer loyalty. More specifically, for a given level of overall satisfaction, customer loyalty is disproportionately stronger when customers perceive that employees are also satisfied.

The SPC model has become the basis of a large body of empirical research showing the strong impact of customer satisfaction on customer loyalty. Research has clearly shown that one of the best ways to increase customer loyalty—measured as repurchase intentions and/or repurchase behavior—is by increasing customer satisfaction (more satisfied customers are more loyal, in general). Though the relationship is positive, research shows there are many differences:

1) The effect of customer satisfaction on customer loyalty can vary based on customer demographics and segments, such that it is stronger for some demographic groups and segments than others.

2) The effect of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, and subsequent financial outcomes for firms, can vary based on industry. Specifically, factors such as—goods versus services industry, degree of competition or concentration in the industry, the utilitarian or hedonic nature of products, and customers' switching costs can affect the nature (non-linearity) and strength of the link between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

3) The measurement of loyalty—especially for customers is multi-faceted. Customer loyalty includes a variety of outcomes—intentions and behaviors associated with repurchase including word-of-mouth, complaint behaviors, share-of-wallet or the relative proportion of purchasing from a single firm relative to customer's total purchasing, and likelihood to recommend.

4) Customer loyalty is influenced, not only by customer satisfaction but also employee satisfaction. Customer loyalty is a function of customer satisfaction. In many firms, especially service-oriented industries such as retailing, health-care, financial services, education, and hospitality the level of satisfaction experienced by front-line employees is a critical component. The level of employee satisfaction influences customer satisfaction as shown in a large-scale study of managers, front-line employees, and customers of a DIY retailer in Europe: results showed that managers affected overall job-satisfaction of front-line employees, which in turn affected the satisfaction of customers they interacted with. Most surprisingly, the level of customer loyalty was much higher among those customers who were themselves more satisfied, but also interacted with more satisfied employees. Highly satisfied customers who dealt with relatively less satisfied employees were relatively less loyal.

Commitment-loyalty model
The customer commitment approach to loyalty is based on the idea that customers with higher commitment toward the brand are also more likely to be loyal toward the brand. Earlier models of customer commitment conceptualized it as a unidimensional construct (e.g., Garbarino and Johnson 1999; Moorman et al. 1992). More recently, scholars have developed a five dimensional scale to measure customer commitment and relate it to customer loyalty. The five commitment dimensions include:
 * Affective commitment
 * Normative commitment
 * Economic commitment
 * Forced commitment
 * Habitual commitment

Data collection
Typically, loyalty data is being collected by multi-item measurement scales administered in questionnaires by software providers such as Confirmit, Medallia, and Satmetrix. However, other approaches sometimes seem more viable if managers want to know the extent of loyalty for an entire data warehouse. This approach is described in Buckinx, Verstraeten & Van den Poel (2006).

All historical trends for different segmentations and their standard of living may also be very helpful in developing customer retention strategy. Lifestyle is also a very powerful tool, can be used for better customer retention and to know his/her needs in better way.

title: Loyalty business model


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Plaza Hotel

The Plaza Hotel (also known as The Plaza) is a luxury hotel and condominium apartment building in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is located on the western side of Grand Army Plaza, after which it is named, just west of Fifth Avenue, and is between 58th Street and Central Park South (a.k.a. 59th Street), at the southeastern corner of Central Park. Its primary address is 768 Fifth Avenue, though the residential entrance is One Central Park South. Since 2018, the hotel has been owned by the Qatari firm Katara Hospitality.

The 18-story, French Renaissance-inspired château style building was designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh. The facade is made of marble at the base, with white brick covering the upper stories, and is topped by a mansard roof. The ground floor contains the two primary lobbies, as well as a corridor connecting the large ground-floor restaurant spaces, including the Oak Room, the Oak Bar, the Edwardian Room, the Palm Court, and the Terrace Room. The upper stories contain the ballroom and a variety of residential condominiums, condo-hotel suites, and short-term hotel suites. At its peak, the Plaza Hotel had over 800 rooms. Following a renovation in 2008, the building has 282 hotel rooms and 181 condos.

A hotel of the same name was built from 1883 to 1890. The original hotel was replaced by the current structure from 1905 to 1907; Warren and Wetmore designed an expansion to the Plaza Hotel that was added from 1919 to 1921, and several major renovations were conducted through the rest of the 20th century. The Plaza Operating Company, which erected the current building, operated the hotel until 1943. Subsequently, it was sold to several owners during the remainder of the 20th century, including Conrad Hilton, A.M. Sonnabend, Westin Hotels & Resorts, Donald Trump, and a partnership of City Developments Limited and Al-Waleed bin Talal. The Plaza Hotel was renovated again after El Ad Properties purchased it in 2005, and the hotel was subsequently sold to Sahara India Pariwar in 2012 and then to Katara Hospitality in 2018. The hotel has been managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts since 2005.

Since its inception, the Plaza Hotel has become an icon of New York City, with numerous wealthy and famous guests. The restaurant spaces and ballrooms have hosted events such as balls, benefits, weddings, and press conferences. The hotel's design, as well as its location near Central Park, has generally received acclaim. In addition, the Plaza Hotel has appeared in numerous books and films. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the hotel's exterior and some of its interior spaces as city landmarks, and the building is also a National Historic Landmark. The hotel is also a member of Historic Hotels of America.

Site

The Plaza Hotel is at 768 Fifth Avenue and One Central Park South in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It faces Central Park South (59th Street) and the Pond and Hallett Nature Sanctuary in Central Park to the north; Grand Army Plaza to the east; and 58th Street to the south. Fifth Avenue itself is across Grand Army Plaza from the hotel. The hotel's site covers 53,772 ft2. It measures 285 ft along 58th Street and 275 ft along Central Park South, with a depth of 200.83 ft between the two streets. As completed in 1907, it measured 145 ft along 58th Street and 250 ft along Central Park South, with an "L" running the entire 200-foot depth of the lot along Grand Army Plaza.

The hotel is near the General Motors Building to the east; the Park Lane Hotel to the west; and the Solow Building, Paris Theater, and Bergdorf Goodman Building to the south. The hotel's main entrance faces the Pulitzer Fountain in the southern portion of Grand Army Plaza. An entrance to the Fifth Avenue–59th Street station of the New York City Subway's is within the base of the hotel at Central Park South.

Fifth Avenue between 42nd Street and Central Park South was relatively undeveloped throughout the late 19th century, when brownstone rowhouses were built on the avenue. By the early 1900s, that section of Fifth Avenue was becoming commercialized. The first decade of the 20th century saw the construction of hotels, stores, and clubs such as the St. Regis New York, the University Club of New York, and the Gotham Hotel. The corner of Fifth Avenue, Central Park South, and 59th Street was developed with the Plaza, Savoy, and New Netherland hotels during the 1890s; the Savoy would be replaced in 1927 by the Savoy-Plaza Hotel, which itself would be demolished in 1964. All three hotels contributed to Fifth Avenue's importance as an upscale area.

Architecture
The Plaza Hotel, a French Renaissance-inspired château-style building, is 251.92 ft tall, with 18 stories. The hotel's floors are numbered according to European usage, where floor 1, corresponding to the second story, is directly above the ground floor. The building was designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh in 1907, with a later addition, by Warren and Wetmore, being built from 1919 to 1922. The interiors of the main public spaces were primarily designed by Hardenbergh, Warren and Wetmore, and Schultze & Weaver. The other interior spaces were by Annabelle Selldorf and date largely to a renovation in 2008. Numerous contractors were involved in the construction of the hotel, including the Atlantic Terra Cotta Company and brick contractor Pfotenhauer & Nesbit.

Facade

The detail of the facade is concentrated on its two primary elevations, which face north toward Central Park and east toward Fifth Avenue. The facade's articulation consists of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column, namely a base, shaft, and crown. The northern and eastern elevations are also split vertically into three portions, with the center portion being recessed. The northeastern and southeastern corners of the hotel contain rounded corners, which resemble turrets. There are numerous loggias, balustrades, columns, pilasters, balconies, and arches repeated across various parts of the facade. The 1921 annex contains a design that is largely similar to Hardenbergh's 1907 design.

Base
The first and second stories of the facade, respectively corresponding to the ground floor and floor 1 of the interior, are clad with rusticated blocks of marble. The third story, corresponding to floor 2 of the interior, contains a smooth marble surface. The hotel had two guest entrances in the 1907 design: the main entrance on Central Park South and a private entrance for long-term residents on 58th Street. The main entrance, in the center of the Central Park South facade, contains a porch above the three center bays, and large doorways. Since the hotel's 2008 renovation, the Central Park South entrance has served as the entrance to the building's condominiums.

The Grand Army Plaza side originally contained a terrace called the Champagne Porch. There were three minor entrances, including one to the porch. The Champagne Porch was replaced by a large central entry in 1921. The entrance there consists of six Tuscan-style columns, supporting a balcony on the second story, immediately above ground level. The second and third stories at the center of the Grand Army Plaza facade contains paired Corinthian-style pilasters supporting an entablature.

Upper stories
The fourth through fifteenth stories, respectively corresponding to interior floors 3 through 14, are clad with white brick and typically contain rectangular windows. These stories contain terracotta veneers that harmonize with the marble facade below it and the mansard roof above. At the center of the Central Park South facade, the five center bays at the twelfth and thirteenth stories (floors 11 and 12) contain an arcade composed of arches with paired pilasters. On the Grand Army Plaza side, there are horizontal band courses above the thirteenth story. The 58th Street facade is a scaled-down version of the two primary elevations on Central Park South and Grand Army Plaza. A marble balcony runs above the thirteenth story on all sides.

The top three floors are within a green-tile mansard roof with copper trim. The Grand Army Plaza side contains a gable, while the 58th Street and Central Park South sides have three stories of dormer windows. The turrets on the northeastern and southeastern corners are topped by domed roofs, which are painted green to match the color of the trees in Central Park. A penthouse occupies the top three stories, which are labeled as floors 19–21.

Mechanical features

The hotel originally contained three sets of pneumatic tube mail systems: one for guest mail, another for guests to order food from the kitchen, and a third for the hotel's various operating departments. The hotel also originally had 10 passenger elevators, 13 dumbwaiters, and three sidewalk elevators. These elevators included four at the Central Park South lobby, three at the 58th Street lobby, and two near Central Park South, for long-term residents. The hotel's water storage tanks had a capacity of 75000 gal, and the hotel could filter 1500000 gal of water from the New York City water supply system each day. Water was passed through ten filters before it was pumped to rooms, and water for the kitchens and for drinking fountains passed through additional filters.

The mechanical plant in the subbasement originally contained nine 3500 hp boilers; a coal plant with a capacity of 750 ST; fourteen ventilating fans; and an electric generating plant with a capacity of 1100 kW. Also in the subbasement was a refrigerating plant that could make 15 ST of ice every 24 hours, as well as a switchboard made of Tennessee marble, which controlled the hotel's power and lighting.

Interior
The hotel has a steel frame superstructure with hollow tile floors, as well as wired-glass enclosures around all stairways and elevators. Originally, five marble staircases led from the ground floor to all of the other floors. As constructed, the stories above the ground floor surrounded a large courtyard, which was covered over with office space in a 1940s renovation. Hardenbergh, in designing the Central Park South foyer, had believed the lobby to be the most important space in the hotel, as did Warren and Wetmore when they designed the Fifth Avenue lobby. Furthermore, Warren and Wetmore had thought restaurants to be the second most significant space in a hotel, in designing the Terrace Room.

There were originally laundry rooms in the basement and on floor 18. When the hotel opened in 1907, the basement also contained a grill room, kitchen, various refrigeration rooms, and amenities such as a Victorian-style Turkish bath and a barber shop. Originally concealed within the mansard roof were the housekeepers' quarters and maids' dormitories; the eighteenth floor had carpentry, ironing, and tailors' departments. The spaces on floor 18 had become offices by the late 20th century.

Hallways and lobbies

In Hardenbergh's original design, a main corridor connects the primary spaces on the ground floor. The corridor, which still exists, connects the lobbies on 58th Street, Grand Army Plaza, and Central Park South. The layout of the ground-floor hallways dates largely from the 1921 expansion by Warren and Wetmore. The corridor wraps around the south, east, and north sides of the Palm Court, which is in the center of the ground floor. Various smaller corridors lead off the main corridor. All of the halls have floors decorated with mosaics, coffered ceilings made of plaster, and marble columns and pilasters with bronze capitals.

The Central Park South entrance foyer served as the original main lobby, and is in the shape of a "U", with an overhanging mezzanine. It contains French marble walls, gilded-bronze column capitals, veined Italian-marble finishes, gold-colored trimmings, a mosaic floor, a plaster coffered ceiling, and columns similar to those in the main corridor. There is a bank of four elevators, with decorative bronze doors, directly in front of the entrance. A crystal chandelier hangs from the ceiling. The entrance doorways contain bronze frames with lunettes. Originally, the branch offices of major brokerage houses adjoined the foyer, including one office in the modern-day Oak Bar. In total, there were six brokerage houses scattered across the ground floor.

During Warren and Wetmore's expansion, the Grand Army Plaza lobby, also called the Fifth Avenue lobby, was created as the hotel's new main lobby, which occupied the former Plaza Restaurant's space. The lobby contains a U-shaped mezzanine running above the northern, eastern, and southern walls, with three entrance vestibules below the eastern section of the mezzanine. The Fifth Avenue lobby was decorated with bas-reliefs; and it preserved some of the original decorations from the Plaza Restaurant, including paneled pilasters and a beamed ceiling. Other features, including the mosaic floor and a crystal chandelier, were added by Warren and Wetmore.

The 58th Street entrance has three elevators and adjoins what was formerly a women's reception room. West of this lobby is a staircase leading up to a mezzanine-level corridor, which has marble floors and ashlar walls and abuts the Terrace Room's balcony to the north and a foyer to the south. The mezzanine-level foyer has marble floors, a painted coffered ceiling supported by two square columns, and a bank of two elevators to the ballroom on floor 1. A marble staircase, with a marble and wooden balustrade, leads from the mezzanine foyer to the ballroom level.

The layout of the upper floors was based on the layout of the ground-floor hallways because all the stairways and elevators were placed in the same position on the upper floors. On floor 2 and all subsequent stories, a centrally located C-shaped corridor runs around the north, east, and south sides of the building and connects every room.

Ground-floor restaurants

The Oak Room, on the western part of the ground floor, was built in 1907 as the bar room. It is west of the Central Park South foyer, separated from the foyer by a corridor. Compared to other spaces in the hotel, it retains more details from the original design. The Oak Room was designed in a German Renaissance style, originally by L. Alavoine and Company. It features oak walls and floors, a coved ceiling, frescoes of Bavarian castles, faux wine casks carved into the woodwork, and a grape-laden brass chandelier. The eastern wall contains a gridded glass double door leading to the main hallway, while the northern wall contains two openings to the Oak Bar.

The Oak Bar is just north of the Oak Room, at the northwest corner of the ground floor. It is designed in Tudor Revival style with a plaster ceiling, strapwork, and floral and foliage motifs. The bar room contains walnut woodwork with French furnishings. It also has three murals by Everett Shinn, which were added in a 1945 renovation and show the neighborhood as it would have appeared in 1907. Prior to the renovation, the Oak Bar served as a brokerage office.

The Edwardian Room, previously known as the Men's Grill or Fifth Avenue Cafe, is at the northeast corner of the ground floor and measures 50 x. It was originally designed by William Baumgarten & Company and McNulty Brothers, but it has been redecorated multiple times. It contains dark Flemish-oak paneling, 12 ft high, with finishes and doorway surrounds made of Caen stone. The walls originally had oak wainscoting and an Aubosson tapestry frieze. The floor is inlaid with mosaic tiles, and the beamed ceiling is inlaid with mirrors, giving the impression of highly decorated trusses. The room is lit by large windows and eight large bronze chandeliers. The room's original color scheme was a relatively toned-down palette of green, dark brown, and gray hues. When first built, there was a musicians' balcony overlooking the room. The room also had an entrance at Grand Army Plaza, which was closed with the creation of the Fifth Avenue lobby. The space housed the Green Tulip and Plaza Suite restaurants in the late 20th century; by the 2000s, it was known as One CPS.

The Palm Court, previously known as the tea room, is in the center of the ground floor. Its design was inspired by the Palm Court at the Carlton Hotel in London. The space has Caen stone and Breche Violette walls, mosaic floors, and marble pilasters and columns with bronze capitals. Tropical plants, rubber trees, and palms gave the room a garden-like ambiance. The Palm Court initially had a stained glass ceiling, which was removed in a 1940s renovation; it was restored in the mid-2000s. There were also mirrors on the western wall, against which are four caryatids carved by Pottier & Stymus, which frame the wall mirrors and represent the seasons. The Palm Court was renovated in 2014; its modern design includes four palm trees as well as a central marble-and-brass bar. East of the Palm Court, separated from it by the main corridor, were once the Plaza Restaurant and the Champagne Porch. The Palm Court and Plaza Restaurant, which shared nearly identical designs, originally formed a "vast dining hall". Removable glass panes along the main corridor abutted both spaces.

The Terrace Room, west of the Palm Court, is part of Warren and Wetmore's 1921 design and is named because it contains three terraces. The terrace increases in height from east to west and divide the room into three sections, which are separated by balustrades and connected by small staircases. The space contains Renaissance-style motifs on the pilasters, ceilings, and wall arches, as well as three chandeliers and rusticated-marble walls. John B. Smeraldi was commissioned to paint the Terrace Room's ornamentation. The room is surrounded by a balcony, with a painted coffer ceiling possibly commissioned by Smeraldi, as well as marble pilasters and floors. A balcony runs slightly above the room on its southern wall. Immediately south of the balcony is the Terrace Room's corridor and foyer.

The southeastern corner of the ground floor originally contained the 58th Street Restaurant, which was exclusively for the hotel's long-term residents. In 1934, it was replaced by a nightclub called the Persian Room, which had red and Persian-blue upholstery by Joseph Urban, five wall murals by Lillian Gaertner Palmedo, and a 27 ft bar. The room operated until 1978.

Ballroom

The original double-height ballroom from Hardenbergh's plan was on the north side of the second story, or floor 1 according to the Plaza Hotel's floor numbering system. The old ballroom, with a capacity of 500 to 600 people, was served by its own elevator and staircase, and contained a movable stage. The old ballroom was overlooked on three sides by balconies, and contained a white-and-cream color scheme similar to the current ballroom. It was served by its own entrance on 58th Street. By the 1970s, the old ballroom was replaced by offices.

The current ballroom on floor 1 is at the center of that story. It was initially designed by Warren and Wetmore, and had a capacity of 800 people for dinners and 1,000 people for dances. The room contained a coved ceiling designed by Smeraldi, with crosses, hexagons, and octagons, as well as six chandeliers. The ballroom had a stage on its western wall, within a rectangular opening. A balcony ran across the three other walls and was supported by pilasters with bronze capitals.

In 1929, Warren and Wetmore's ballroom was reconstructed according to a neoclassical design by Schultze & Weaver. The room has a white-and-cream color scheme with gold ornamentation, evocative of the original ballroom's design. The stage remains on the western wall, but is within a rounded opening. The redesign added audience boxes, with decorative metal railings, on the north and east walls. The ballroom contains a coved ceiling with roundels, lunettes, bas reliefs, and two chandeliers. South of the ballroom proper is a corridor running west to east. The corridor has a decorative barrel-vaulted paneled ceiling and had a balcony that was removed during the 1929 redesign. On the southernmost section of floor 1 is the ballroom foyer and the stair hall, two formerly separate rooms that were combined in 1965 to form a neoclassical marble-clad space. The stair hall contains the stairs leading from the mezzanine foyer.

Condominiums and suites

The Plaza Hotel's condominiums and suites start on the third story, labeled as floor 2. As originally built, they contained three primary types of suites: those with one bedroom and one bathroom; those with two bedrooms and two bathrooms; and those with a parlor and varying numbers of bedrooms and bathrooms. The walls were originally painted in rose, yellow, cream, and gray hues. No wallpaper was used in the rooms, which were instead finished in plain plaster. For decorative effect, the rooms contained wooden wainscoting and furniture, while the plaster ceilings supported crystal chandeliers. A guest or resident could request multiple suites, since there were smaller private hallways adjacent to the main hallway on each floor. There were also staff rooms at the corners of the main corridor on each floor. Dumbwaiters led from the staff rooms to the basement kitchen, allowing guests to order meals and eat them in-suite. In each room were three buttons, which guests could use to contact that floor's staff, the maid, or the bellhop.

Following its 2008 renovation, the building contains 181 privately owned condominiums, which are marketed as the Plaza Residences or One Central Park South. The condominiums are on the north and east sides of the building and have a variety of layouts, from studio apartments to three-story penthouse units. The condos' interiors include parquet floors and stone counters, and largely reflect the original design of these rooms. There are also 282 hotel units on the southern side of the building. Of these, 152 condo-hotel units occupy the eleventh through twenty-first stories, respectively labeled as floors 10 through 20. The condo-hotel units serve as residences for investors or staff for up to four months a year, and are used as short-term hotel units for the remaining time. In addition, there are 130 rooms exclusively for short-term stays on the fourth through tenth stories, respectively labeled as floors 3 through 9. The hotel portion of the building retains a butler on each floor, reminiscent of the hotel's original opulence.

Hardenbergh's design included the State Apartment on the northern side of floor 1. This apartment was one of the most lavish suites in the entire hotel; it had a drawing room, antechambers, dining rooms, bedrooms and bathrooms, and food storage. Also on floor 1 were private banquet, reception, and card rooms. The apartment was turned into a private dining area and restored in 1974. Similarly ornate suites were located along the Central Park South side on eleven of the upper floors. The twenty-first story (labeled as floor 20) was created as part of the 2008 renovation, and is part of a four-bedroom penthouse, the largest condominium in the building.

In the early- and mid-20th century, several designers, such as Elsie de Wolfe and Cecil Beaton, were hired to design special suites for the hotel, which has also offered suites or experiences that are themed to notable books or films set there. During 2013, a 900 ft2 suite on the 18th floor of the hotel was furnished with various decorations from the movie The Great Gatsby. The furnished room was based on the novel of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which had several scenes set at the hotel (see ). During 2017 and 2018, the Plaza Hotel sold vacation packages with memorabilia, photo opportunities, an in-suite ice cream sundae, and visits to New York City tourist attractions based on the film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which is partially set in the hotel. Another room in the hotel was redecorated in 2022 to promote the TV series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

History
The land lots making up the site of the present-day Plaza Hotel were first parceled and sold by the government of New York City in 1853, and acquired by John Anderson from 1870 to 1881. Prior to the Plaza Hotel's development, the site was occupied either by the New York Skating Club, or was vacant. When John Anderson died in 1881, his will stipulated that his land would pass to his son, John Charles Anderson. The first development on the site was proposed in 1882, when Ernest Flagg was enlisted to design a 12-story apartment building for a syndicate led by his father, Jared. However, the Flagg apartment development was not built, likely due to a lack of funding.

First hotel
John Duncan Phyfe and James Campbell acquired the site in 1883. Phyfe and Campbell announced plans for a nine-story apartment building at the site in October of that year, to be designed by Carl Pfeiffer; and construction on the apartment block began that same year. The builders borrowed over $800,000 from the New York Life Insurance Company, and obtained a second mortgage from John Charles Anderson for a total investment of $2 million. By 1887, after taking three loans from New York Life, Phyfe and Campbell found that they did not have enough funds to complete the apartment block. The extent to which the apartment building was completed before the builders' bankruptcy is unclear.

In February 1888, brothers Eugene M. and Frank Earle entered into a contract to lease the hotel from Phyfe and Campbell and to furnish it. New York Life concurrently foreclosed on the apartment building and that September bought it at public auction for $925,000. Shortly afterward, New York Life decided to remodel the interiors completely, hiring architects McKim, Mead & White to complete the hotel. New York Life leased the hotel to Frederick A. Hammond in 1889, and the Hammond brothers became the operators of the hotel for the next fifteen years.

The first Plaza Hotel finally opened on October 1, 1890, at a cost of $3 million. The original hotel stood eight stories tall and had 400 rooms. The interiors featured extensive mahogany and carved-wood furnishings; lion motifs, representing the hotel's coat of arms; and a 30 ft dining room with stained glass windows and gold and white decorations. Moses King, in his 1893 Handbook of New York City, characterized the hotel as "one of the most attractive public houses in the wide world". Despite being described as fashionable, it was not profitable. The New York Times reported in 1891 that the hotel netted $72,000 in rental income, against the $1.8 million that New York Life had spent to complete the hotel, including loans to Phyfe and Campbell.

Redeveloped hotel in the early 20th century
The first Plaza Hotel had been relatively remote when it was completed, but by the first decade of the 20th century was part of a rapidly growing commercial district on Fifth Avenue. Furthermore, several upscale hotels in Manhattan were also being rebuilt during that time. In May 1902, a syndicate purchased the Plaza and three adjacent lots on Central Park South for $3 million. The sale was the largest-ever cash-only purchase for a Manhattan property at the time. The purchasers were headed by Harry S. Black—who headed the George A. Fuller Company, one of the syndicate's members—as well as German financier Bernhard Beinecke.

Shortly after the purchase, Black and Beinecke formed the Plaza Realty Company to redevelop the hotel. In mid-1905, Black also formed the United States Realty and Construction Company, a trust whose subsidiaries included the Fuller Company and the Plaza Realty Company. Sources disagree on whether Black and Beinecke approached barbed-wire entrepreneur John Warne Gates for funding, or whether Gates overheard Black and Beinecke discuss their redevelopment plans at a restaurant. In either case, Gates agreed to fund the project on the condition that Frederic Sterry be named the Plaza's managing director. To entice Sterry to join the hotel's staff, Black and Beinecke wanted to make a grand hotel.

Construction

Henry J. Hardenbergh was hired as architect in 1905, initially being commissioned to expand the existing hotel by five stories. Hardenbergh had already gained some renown for designing other upscale hotels, such as the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, twenty-five blocks south, during the 1890s. Beinecke, Black, and Gates subsequently discovered that the foundation of the existing hotel could not support the additional stories, so they decided to rebuild it completely. The George A. Fuller Company was contracted to construct the new hotel. Hardenbergh designed the new hotel building while the owners waited for the existing lease to expire. His design took advantage of the fact that the site faced Grand Army Plaza and could thus be seen from many angles.

The first Plaza Hotel was closed on June 11, 1905, and demolition commenced immediately upon the expiration of the lease there. The existing hotel's furnishings were auctioned. The site was cleared within two months of the start of demolition. Hardenbergh filed plans for the hotel with the New York City Department of Buildings that September. By the next month, contractors were clearing the old hotel's foundation. The new hotel was to use 10000 ST of steel, and a group of 100 workers and seven derricks erected two stories of steelwork every six days. The Fuller Company decided to hire both union and non-union ironworkers for the hotel's construction, a decision that angered the union workers. Patrolmen were hired to protect the non-union workers, and one patrolmen was killed during a dispute with union workers. By October 1906, the facade of the new hotel was under construction.

Hardenbergh and Sterry directed several firms to furnish the interior spaces. Sterry recalled that all of the interior features were custom-designed for the hotel, such as 1,650 crystal chandeliers and the largest-ever order of gold-rimmed cutlery. Much of the furniture was manufactured by the Pooley Company of Philadelphia; where the Pooley Company could not manufacture the furnishings, the Plaza's developers chartered ships to import material from Europe. Sterry himself was dispatched to Europe to purchase these materials. The developers originally anticipated that the hotel would cost $8.5 million to construct, including the furnishings. Shortly after work started, the developers determined that they would need to raise another $4 million, and the additional expenditures pushed the final construction cost to $12.5 million. To pay for the construction costs, the developers received a $5 million loan in mid-1906, followed by another $4.5 million loan in 1907.

Opening and expansion
The new 800-room Plaza Hotel was opened on October 1, 1907, twenty-seven months after work had commenced. The opening was attended by people such as businessman Diamond Jim Brady; actresses Lillian Russell, Billie Burke, Maxine Elliott, and Fritzi Scheff; producers David Belasco and Oscar Hammerstein I; actor John Drew Jr.; and author Mark Twain. Though the opening coincided with the Panic of 1907, the hotel suffered minimal losses. The new hotel more than doubled the capacity of the first structure, and it was intended as a largely residential hotel at opening, although the terms for "hotel" and "apartment" were largely synonymous at the time. Estimates held that ninety percent of the units were for long-term residents. The owners charged short-term guests $2.50 nightly. In addition to the apartments, there were 500 bathrooms, ten elevators, a myriad of marble staircases, and two floors of public rooms. Gates, one of the original investors, was among the residents of the new Plaza; when he died in 1911, his funeral was held at the hotel.

Most of the public rooms were not originally given formal names. Although Hardenbergh had predicted that gender-segregated spaces were going out of fashion, there was a women's reception room near 58th Street; and the bar room and men's grill (respectively the present Oak and Edwardian Rooms) were exclusively used by men. In practice, the men's grill acted as a social club where discussing business was socially inappropriate, while the bar was a space to talk business. Sometime between 1912 and the start of Prohibition in the United States in 1920, the brokerage office near the entrance, now the Oak Bar, was turned into an extension of the bar room. The Champagne Porch along Grand Army Plaza was the most exclusive area of the hotel, with meals costing between $50 and $500. The basement's grill room hosted ice-skating in the summer, as well as a "dog check room" where residents' dogs could be fed luxuriously. In its first decade, the Plaza employed a staff of over 1,500.

From the start, the Plaza Operating Company was already preparing for the possibility of expansion, and acquired the lots between 5 and 19 West 58th Street in the first two decades of the 20th century. This land acquisition commenced before the second hotel had even opened. By 1915, the Plaza Operating Company had acquired four lots on West 58th Street and one on Central Park South, and it received an exemption from the 1916 Zoning Resolution, which set height restrictions for new buildings on the 58th Street side of the lots. The company filed plans for a 19-story annex along 58th Street in August 1919, to be designed by Warren and Wetmore. The final lots, at 15 and 17 West 58th Street, were acquired in 1920 after the plans had been filed. The George A. Fuller Company was again hired as the builder. To fund the construction of the annex, the Plaza Operating Company took out mortgage loans worth $2.275 million.

The Champagne Porch was only frequented by the extremely wealthy; and in 1921, after the start of Prohibition, Sterry decided to remove the room altogether. An enlarged entrance took its place. The work also included building a new restaurant called the Terrace Room, as well as a ballroom and 350 additional suites. Warren and Wetmore designed the expanded interior with more subtle contrasts in the decor, compared to Hardenbergh's design. The annex opened October 14, 1921, with an event in the ballroom, but was not officially completed until April 1922. With the advent of Prohibition, the bar room was also closed, and the gender segregation rule was relaxed. The space occupied by the present-day Oak Bar became the offices of brokerage EF Hutton. The Plaza had become the city's most valuable hotel by 1923, and contributed to the parent U.S. Realty Company being highly profitable and paying increasingly high dividends during the 1920s.

Great Depression
For unknown reasons, Warren and Wetmore's ballroom was reconstructed from June to September 1929, based on neoclassical designs by Schultze & Weaver. Shortly afterward, U.S. Realty's stock price collapsed in the Wall Street Crash of October 1929, which commenced the Great Depression in the United States. Plaza Hotel co-owner Harry Black killed himself the following year, and his partner Bernhard Beinecke died two years later. The rebuilt Plaza's first manager, Fred Sterry, died in 1933. The early 1930s were also financially difficult for the Plaza Hotel, as only half of the suites were occupied by 1932. To reduce operating costs for the hotel's restaurants, the grill room in the basement was converted into a closet, while the Rose Room became an automobile showroom. The furnishings of the hotel fell into disrepair; and during some months management was unable to pay staff.

By the mid-1930s, the old tea room was officially known as the Palm Court, having been frequently referred to as the "Palm Room" during the previous decade. The back room was reopened as the Oak Room restaurant in 1934, although it was still referred to as the "back room" by its frequent visitors, which included bankers and brokers. The same year, the Fifth Avenue lobby received display windows and a doorway on the southern wall; and the southeastern corner of the ground floor was remodeled into the Persian Room.

Hilton operation

U.S. Realty continued to lose money through the 1930s, and started selling off its properties, including the Plaza Hotel. In October 1943, Atlas Corporation, collaborating with hotelier Conrad Hilton, bought the Plaza Hotel for $7.4 million. At the time, the Plaza was 61 percent occupied, and many public areas were closed due to supply shortages caused by World War II. Hilton subsequently spent $6 million refurbishing the hotel. During mid-1944, the lobby on Fifth Avenue was renovated and its mezzanine was enclosed. The Palm Court skylight, having fallen into disrepair, was removed for the installation of air conditioning equipment. A mezzanine was also built above the hotel's former courtyard, and the room itself became the Court Lounge. The brokerage office at the ground level's northwestern corner was turned into the Oak Bar, which opened in January 1945; and EF Hutton was relegated to the Fifth Avenue lobby's mezzanine. The contractor for the renovations may have been Frederick P. Platt & Brother, which was the Plaza Hotel's primary contractor in the 1940s.

The Plaza Hotel Corporation, the hotel's operator, was merged with the Hilton Hotels Corporation in 1946. The following year, the Plaza Rendez-Vous opened within the old grill room space. By the early 1950s, women were allowed inside the Oak Room and Bar during evenings and in the summer. The Oak Room and Bar was still a men-only space before 3 p.m., while the stock exchanges were open.

Hilton sold the hotel in 1953 to Boston industrialist A.M. "Sonny" Sonnabend for $15 million, and immediately leased it back for 2.5 years. Sonnabend became president of national restaurant chain Childs Company in 1955, and Childs purchased the Plaza that November for $6.2 million in stock. The same year, the ground-floor Plaza Restaurant was renamed the Edwardian Room. James S. Graham Jr. simultaneously renovated the State Apartment, and air conditioning was installed in each guest room. Childs became the Hotel Corporation of America (HCA) in 1956, and Hilton's lease was renewed indefinitely that year. HCA sold the Plaza to Lawrence Wien in November 1958 for $21 million and immediately leased it back for 25 years. The transaction included curtailing Hilton's lease to April 1960, at which time HCA assumed the operating lease.

Sonnabend operation
The Plaza Hotel experienced financial difficulties during the early 1960s; but under Sonnabend's management, the Plaza's financial outlook improved by 1964. The facade of the hotel was cleaned in late 1960, the first time that the exterior had been fully cleaned since its construction. This was followed, in 1962, by extensive exterior and interior renovations, which resulted in the redecoration of many of the suites and public rooms. Four of the hotel's hydraulic elevators were replaced with electric elevators in 1964, including the three elevators in the 58th Street lobby. A second phase of renovations was announced the same year, which entailed enlarging some public rooms and replacing the ground-floor barber shop with a Trader Vic's bar. The ballroom's foyer and stair hall were combined during this renovation, which was completed by 1965, having cost $9 million.

Upon Sonny Sonnabend's death in 1964, his son Roger took over the hotel. Further changes to the hotel's ownership occurred the next year, when Sol Goldman and Alexander DiLorenzo's firm, Wellington Associates, bought an option to obtain a half-interest in the underlying land from Hilton. Gender restrictions at the Oak Room were removed in 1969, after the National Organization for Women held a sit-in to protest the men-only policy during middays. HCA, by then renamed Sonesta Hotels, announced another round of renovations in 1971. This included the redecoration of the Grand Ballroom, as well as the replacement of the Edwardian Room with a restaurant called the Green Tulip, whose pink, lime, and brown design by Sally Dryden received a largely negative reception from the public. The ballroom was also renovated at this time.

The renovations coincided with a decline in Sonesta's and the Plaza's finances, with the hotel recording negative net income in 1971. Sonesta repurchased the Plaza Hotel from Wien in 1972. Shortly afterward, Sonesta looked to sell its interest in the hotel to Harry Helmsley, and Wellington attempted to take over Sonesta by buying its shares. Both the sale and the attempted Sonesta takeover were unsuccessful; and Wellington made an offer for Sonesta's share of the hotel in April 1974, which Sonesta refused.

Westin ownership
In November 1974, Western International Hotels announced its intention to buy the Plaza Hotel from Sonesta for $25 million. The same year, the Edwardian Room was largely restored according to designs by Charles Winslow, and was rebranded as the Plaza Suite. Following Western International's acquisition of the Plaza, it renovated the interior spaces, cleaned the exterior, and restored much of the hotel according to the original designs, at a total cost of $200 million. The four hydraulic elevators serving the Central Park South lobby, among the last of their type in the city, were replaced with electric elevators in 1976. Westin also bought the Shinn murals that year for $1 million; they had not been part of the original sale. The Rambusch Company was hired to restore the Oak Room and Bar. The next year, a 204-seat theater called Cinema 3 opened in the basement. The Persian Room was closed in 1978, and a clothing boutique opened in its place. Westin had planned to restore the Palm Court's skylight, but this did not happen.

By the late 1970s, the Plaza Hotel was again making a net profit. Western International changed its name to Westin Hotels in 1981; the hotel was renamed soon after, becoming The Westin Plaza. However, Westin started to lose money in the late 1980s. By 1987, Westin's parent company Allegis Corporation announced its intent to sell the Plaza, generating interest from at least 150 investors. The Plaza, along with the rest of the Westin chain, was transferred to the Aoki Corporation and Robert M. Bass in January 1988. Shortly afterward, Philip Pilevsky and Arthur G. Cohen expressed their intent to buy the Plaza and turn it into a hotel-cooperative.

Trump ownership
In March 1988, real estate developer Donald Trump bought the Plaza using a $407 million loan from several banks. After gaining title to the hotel in July, Trump put his wife Ivana in charge of renovating and managing the hotel. The Trumps subsequently announced a major renovation program, which entailed restoring the lobby and some of the other interior elements. The work also involved gilding many surfaces, replacing carpets, and reupholstering furniture. Trump also decided to shut down the Trader Vic's in the basement in 1989, saying it had become "tacky". The hotel made a modest profit for about two years after Trump's purchase, largely from increased occupancy, suite rates, and banquet bookings.

Trump had borrowed extensively to purchase the Plaza, but the hotel's operating income was several million dollars below the breakeven point. As a result, the hotel's debt ultimately grew to $600 million. By 1991, Trump was making plans to pay off the hotel's debt by selling off the vast majority of its units as condominiums. Trump estimated that the conversion would net $750 million, almost twice the purchase price. Trump also considered converting the offices under the mansard roof to penthouse condos, according to designs by Lee Harris Pomeroy. The conversion plan failed because it would have been unprofitable, due to a then-recent drop-off in prices in the city's real estate market. In March 1992, as a last resort, Trump approached the Plaza's creditors, a group of seventy banks led by Citibank, who agreed to take a 49% stake in the hotel in exchange for forgiveness of $250 million in debt and an interest-rate reduction. The agreement was submitted as a prepackaged bankruptcy in November 1992 and approved the next month.

Kwek and Al-Waleed ownership
By 1994, Trump was looking to sell the Plaza before Citibank and other creditors could find a buyer, which would have wiped out his investment. One of his executives identified Hong Kong–based Sun Hung Kai Properties as a potential buyer. The deal fell through after the family of Sun Hung Kai executive Walter Kwok got trapped behind a jammed door while touring the Plaza Hotel. Trump, attempting to maintain appearances, threatened to sue the New York Post that December for reporting that the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, had made an offer for the hotel. Meanwhile, the creditors had also identified Singaporean developer Kwek Leng Beng as a likely buyer. Kwek's company, Singaporean chain City Developments Limited (CDL), offered to take over the creditors' ownership stake. Saudi prince Al-Waleed bin Talal was also interested in buying the Plaza; and by March 1995, Al-Waleed and CDL had raised $325 million for a controlling stake. Trump unsuccessfully petitioned Kwek to partner with him instead of Al-Waleed.

Trump sold the controlling stake to Kwek and Al-Waleed in April 1995. As part of the transaction, the hotel's debt was reduced to $25 million. Kwek and Al-Waleed each bought a 42 percent stake, and Citibank received the other 16 percent stake, a move intended to prevent Trump from intervening in the sale. The partnership also agreed that, if the mansard penthouses were ever created, some of the profits would be shared with Trump. In 1997, Hong Kong developer Great Eagle Holdings agreed to buy half of Al-Waleed's stake in the Plaza Hotel. DiLorenzo International renovated the ballroom in the mid-1990s, and Adam Tihany refurbished the Edwardian Room prior to 2001. The Plaza was highly profitable in the late 1990s, with operating income of almost $46 million at the end of that decade.

El Ad ownership

The September 11 attacks in 2001 resulted in a downturn in the New York City tourism industry. Correspondingly, the Plaza's operating profits decreased greatly, leaving Kwek and Al-Waleed unable to refurbish the Plaza as they had previously planned to do. In 2004, they sold the Plaza Hotel for $675 million to El Ad Properties, run by developer Yitzhak Tshuva. El Ad wished to add residential and commercial units, but initially faced pushback from hotel unions and preservationists, who opposed El Ad's plan to remove most of the hotel rooms and convert the restaurant spaces to stores. In particular, preservationists opposed the conversion of the ballroom into commercial space, even though no changes to the ballroom's architecture were planned, because part of the ballroom occupied a site that was zoned for residential use only. After over sixty hours of discussions between El Ad and the hotel unions, they came to an agreement on April 14, 2005, under which El Ad would convert fewer units to apartments, while preserving more of the hotel suites.

The Plaza Hotel temporarily closed for a $450 million renovation on April 30, 2005, two weeks after the agreement had been brokered. Fairmont Hotels and Resorts took over operation of the hotel portion during late 2005. The Plaza's furnishings were auctioned on-site and at a Christie's auction in 2006. During the renovation, most of the short-term hotel rooms were converted into residential units, and the Palm Court's stained glass ceiling was restored. In addition, floors 18 and 19 were extended toward the interior courtyard, while a small floor 20 was created above the existing roof.

The hotel reopened on March 1, 2008. Though the real-estate market in general had slowed down due to the financial crisis of 2007–2008, apartments at the Plaza Hotel were being sold for millions of dollars, disproportionately impacting average apartment prices in Manhattan. The hotel unveiled its retail collection, an underground mall featuring luxury brands, in November 2008. Initially, the Plaza sought to attract foreign companies, since many American luxury brands already rented space nearby or sold goods in the neighboring Bergdorf Goodman Building. The Plaza Food Hall opened in the underground mall in 2010, anchored by the Todd English Food Hall in collaboration with chef Todd English. By then, El Ad was struggling to find tenants for the mall, and several residents had lost money selling their apartments. The Oak Room restaurant closed in July 2011, two years after the renovation was completed.

Sahara India ownership
In mid-2012, Sahara India Pariwar agreed to buy a 75 percent controlling stake for $570 million from El Ad Properties. The deal closed that December. However, even at the time of the sale, Sahara was experiencing legal issues and was selling off other properties that it owned. The development of the nearby Billionaires' Row, an area with several residential skyscrapers marketed for the ultra-wealthy, also negatively affected sales at the Plaza. The Plaza's net income decreased from $3.67 million, in 2012, to negative $1.2 million, in 2014, a figure that declined even further, to negative $10 million, by 2017. Two years after buying the Plaza, Sahara's Subrata Roy announced that he was looking for a buyer for his company's $4 billion majority stake. The Sultan of Brunei made an unsuccessful bid of $680 million. In August 2017, after he was unable to secure a buyer, Roy hired a broker to sell the hotel, prompting inquiries from about 50 potential buyers.

Simultaneously, former co-owner Al-Waleed, whose Kingdom Holding Company now owned a minor stake in the hotel, partnered with Ashkenazy Acquisition Corporation. Kingdom and Ashkenazy's partnership included a right of first refusal, which allowed the companies to match any third-party offer for the hotel. In May 2018, the Sahara Group announced it had finalized a deal with businessmen Shahal M. Khan and Kamran Hakim to buy a majority share of the hotel for $600 million. However, Ashkenazy and Kingdom exercised their right of first refusal, and sued Sahara for trying to sell the hotel to a third party. Ashkenazy and Kingdom received an extension to close their purchase of the Plaza, but instead opted to sell their stake to Qatari state-owned hotelier Katara Hospitality, which the companies felt was better positioned to close the sale.

Katara Hospitality ownership
In July 2018, Katara Hospitality acquired full ownership of the Plaza Hotel after buying Sahara's and Askenazy and Kingdom's stakes. Under Katara's ownership, the condominium units garnered high asking prices: for instance, a four-bedroom unit was listed for $45 million in early 2020. Around the same time, the Plaza's condominium board sought to make repairs to the facade. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, and a corresponding downturn in tourism globally, the Plaza's hotel rooms were temporarily closed in March 2020 for an indefinite period, and several hundred employees were laid off. When the Plaza Hotel officially reopened in May 2021, public spaces such as the Palm Court were rearranged to allow for social distancing. By the mid-2020s, the values of many condominiums had decreased, amid competition from newer luxury developments nearby and complaints about poor-quality material.

Residents
When the current Plaza Hotel opened in 1907, the first guest to sign its register was Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt. The hotel also housed other wealthy residents, such as George Jay Gould, as well as Oliver Harriman Jr. and his wife Grace Carley Harriman. John Gates, the hotel's co-developer, had a 16-room apartment on floor 3, which he rented for $15,000 a year. Harry Frank Guggenheim lived in the hotel's State Apartment, while Russian princess Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy, a prominent portrait painter in the early 20th century, lived in a suite on floor 3 with her lion. The hotel's appeal to the wealthy came from the fact that, in the early 20th century, apartments at the Plaza were generally cheaper than in more upscale apartment buildings, and that it faced Central Park, which at the time was well patronized by the wealthy.

Later in the 20th century, the Plaza Hotel served as home to "wealthy widows", such as performer Kay Thompson, who wrote the Eloise children's book series about a young girl who lived at the hotel. During the Great Depression, the "wealthy widows" were considered "a tourist attraction in their own right", with their rents keeping the hotel solvent. The hotel's other residents included playwright Ferenc Molnár.

After many units were converted to condominium units in 2008, the Plaza Hotel became even more coveted by the wealthy. However, only about a third of these buyers were full-time residents, with the remainder using their Plaza condominiums as pieds-a-terre. The residents included executives such as New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, JetBlue CEO David Barger, Bear Stearns CEO James Cayne, Viacom CEO Thomas E. Dooley, Sony Music Entertainment CEO Doug Morris, and Idols franchise producer Simon Fuller. Other notable residents included developer Christian Candy and fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger.

Guests
The guest rooms have also housed notable personalities, such as opera singer Enrico Caruso, as well as novelists F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald. Frank Lloyd Wright often stayed at the Plaza when he was designing the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue, considering the hotel to be his home. Art dealer Joseph Duveen, 1st Baron Duveen, who helped assemble the Frick Collection at the nearby Frick House, lived at the Plaza and held important auctions in the ballroom. In addition, the Beatles stayed at the Plaza Hotel during their first visit to the United States in February 1964.

Social scene
The Plaza Hotel became associated with celebrities and the wealthy upon its opening, surpassing the original Waldorf Astoria in that respect. The Palm Court (then the tea room), with its mostly female guest list, was particularly frequented. Weeks after the hotel's 1907 opening, actress Mrs Patrick Campbell attempted to smoke there, and the resulting controversy boosted the Plaza's stature. In January 1908, crowds flocked to see heiress Gladys Vanderbilt and her fiancé, Hungarian count László Széchenyi, have tea, while Theodora Shonts arrived with her fiancé Emmanuel d'Albert de Luynes, the Duke of Chaulnes. That year, the New York World dubbed the hotel the "Home-for-the-Incurably Opulent". By 1909, the Palm Court was consistently exceeding its 350-person capacity.

During the 1920s, the basement's grill room was a popular meeting place for young adults born during the Lost Generation. The Oak Room was frequented by actor George M. Cohan, and a commemorative plaque for Cohan was installed in the room in the 1940s after his death. The Persian Room was popular with the "cafe society", being frequented by socialites and fashion trendsetters. Eddy Duchin and Hildegarde were among the Persian Room's early performers, and it later attracted others, such as Eartha Kitt, Peggy Lee, and Liza Minnelli. By the 1970s, the Persian Room hosted performances by pop singers such as Robert Goulet and Dusty Springfield.

The hotel has also been popular among world leaders, particularly presidents of the United States. The first of these was Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th U.S. president, who moved his Republican Party's events to the Plaza Hotel from the Fifth Avenue Hotel after the closure of the latter in 1908. Theodore Roosevelt's distant cousin, president Franklin D. Roosevelt, had his birthday luncheon in the Palm Court in 1935. Other U.S. presidents who frequented the hotel's guestrooms or restaurants have included William Howard Taft, Harry S. Truman, and Richard Nixon, as well as onetime owner Donald Trump. For other world leaders, the Plaza Hotel kept a set of national flags, so that an appropriate one could be displayed whenever a foreign head of state visited. Chiang Ching-kuo, at the time the Vice Premier of the Republic of China, was shot by Taiwanese student Peter Huang in an attempted assassination at the hotel on April 24, 1970.

The Plaza Hotel has hosted diplomatic events, as in September 1985, when the finance ministers of several countries signed the Plaza Accord, by which the U.S. dollar was depreciated in relation to other currencies.

Receptions

The Terrace Room has frequently been used for press conferences, luncheons, and receptions. For instance, it hosted a 1956 press conference where Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe talked about their upcoming film The Prince and the Showgirl. At a press conference in the Terrace Room in 1968, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor discussed their film Dr. Faustus. During the Beatles' 1964 stay at the hotel, visitors were allowed to take pictures with the Beatles in the Terrace Room.

Benefits and weddings
Upon the Grand Ballroom's opening in 1921, it immediately became popular as a venue for debutante balls, including those in honor of Joan Whitney Payson and Cathleen Vanderbilt. The rebuilt ballroom hosted social benefits, such as a dinner honoring physicist Marie Curie in 1929, and a meeting of the Girls Service League in 1935 that was attended by U.S. first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Following World War II, the Grand Ballroom again became a popular venue for debutante balls and benefits, including a disabled veterans' benefit called the December Ball,  as well as an event benefiting the Kennedy Child Care Study Center in 1959. Writer Truman Capote hosted the "Black and White Ball" there in 1966, in honor of publisher Katharine Graham. Another popular venue for benefits was the Terrace Court, which hosted events such as the Mid-Winter Ball in 1949.

The Grand Ballroom and Terrace Room have also been used for weddings and wedding receptions. For example, the Terrace Room held the reception for figure skater Sonja Henie's 1949 wedding to Winthrop Gardiner Jr. Peter Lawford and Patricia Kennedy Lawford's wedding reception was hosted in the ballroom in 1954, as was David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon Eisenhower's reception in 1968. The ballroom also hosted Donald Trump and Marla Maples's 1993 wedding. In 2000, actors Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones married at the Plaza.

Status as an icon
The Plaza Hotel has become an icon of New York City. Paul Goldberger, writing for The New York Times in 1982, stated that the Plaza had become an important part of the city's architectural history, similar to the Grand Central Terminal and the New York Public Library Main Branch. As another historian said, "Every tourist I've ever met, every [tour] group I've ever had, they all know the Plaza Hotel". The National Trust for Historic Preservation recognized the Plaza Hotel as a Historic Hotel of America.

Critical reception
Upon the present building's opening, the design of the hotel, particularly the interiors, received mostly positive criticism. The New York Times characterized the exterior as "a fitting introduction to the interior", praising the interior for its relative modesty compared to other hotels. However, H. W. Frohne wrote that Hardenbergh had "fail[ed] to make the public rooms entertaining". Critics for two architectural magazines also praised the carved woodwork in the Oak Room and the greenery that originally adorned the Palm Court. For the latter, the Times praised the "gardenlike" effect of the Palm Court, enhanced by its glass ceiling. Frank Lloyd Wright wrote that Hardenbergh's exterior design for the Plaza Hotel was an early skyscraper with "a human sense", in contrast to later skyscrapers, which Wright described as "monstrous thing[s]".

In the 1967 book The Plaza, Its Life and Times, Eve Brown wrote that "The Plaza has managed always to be in tune with the times, its dignity unruffled, its good taste unimpaired". Ada Louise Huxtable wrote for The New York Times in 1971 that the Plaza Hotel was the city's "most celebrated symbol of cosmopolitan and turn-of-the-century splendor", speaking negatively only of the short-lived Green Tulip restaurant. Judith Gura described the interior spaces as "merg[ing] seamlessly into a harmonious ensemble", despite each space having a distinct character. Curtis Gathje, the Plaza Hotel's official historian and a 25-year veteran of the hotel's staff, stated in 2007, "The Plaza is the epitome of civilized New York."

The site, facing Central Park, was seen as particularly prominent. As early as 1892, Moses King called it "a location of unsurpassed beauty". The rebuilt Plaza was described in a 1907 Architectural Record article as having a site that was "the most unobstructed and charming which could have been selected for a large metropolitan hotel", despite being smaller than that of competitors, such as the Waldorf Astoria. According to Goldberger, the Plaza Hotel's location along both Grand Army Plaza and Central Park made it particularly imposing, with two primary facades. The American Institute of Architects' 2007 survey List of America's Favorite Architecture ranked the Plaza Hotel among the top 150 buildings in the United States. The 2010 edition of the AIA Guide to New York City emphasized the park views, characterizing the third- through fifth-floor suites along Central Park South as having "one of the most exciting views of New York".

Landmark designations

The demolition of the nearby Savoy-Plaza in 1964, and its replacement with the General Motors Building, resulted in a preservation movement to save the Plaza Hotel and nearby structures. This prompted the New York City Planning Commission to rezone a three-block area around Grand Army Plaza, including the Plaza Hotel, in 1968. The Plaza Hotel's exterior was designated a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1969. The hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and it was made a National Historic Landmark in 1986.

A large part of the main public space in the interior—including the lobbies, ballroom, and restaurant spaces—was made a New York City designated landmark in 2005. The interior-landmark designation was partially motivated by opposition to El Ad's original plans to renovate the hotel during 2004. The restaurant spaces, preserved under the interior-landmark designation, would have been converted into retail space. The Edwardian Room was not originally part of the landmark designation, but it was ultimately protected along with the other rooms.

In media
The Plaza Hotel has been used as a setting for several works of literature throughout its history. Most notably, it served as the setting for the Eloise series of books, the success of which led the hotel's owners during the 1960s to hang the character's portrait in the lobby. The Plaza was also featured in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby.

The hotel is also one of the most popular filming locations in New York City. Films shot or set in the hotel include North by Northwest (1959), Barefoot in the Park (1967), Funny Girl (1968), Plaza Suite (1971),  The Way We Were (1973), and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992). Other films that show the Plaza include Arthur (1981),  Crocodile Dundee (1986), Scent of a Woman (1992), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), and It Could Happen to You (1994).

The Plaza has also refused or set unusual conditions for some productions wanting to film there. For example, when the Plaza's managers refused to allow the producers of Big Business (1988) to film there, the film's producers created their own version of the Plaza Hotel on a sound stage. When Home Alone 2 was being filmed, producer Chris Columbus said that Donald Trump requested a cameo in the film, in exchange for allowing the film crew to shoot scenes in the lobby. The lobby scene involved the star sliding across the floor, so the carpeting was removed, thus revealing some old tilework with the Plaza logo that had been concealed for several decades. The management decided not to replace the carpet.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Plaza Hotel


text:
Mahalakshmi (disambiguation)

Mahalakshmi or Mahalaxmi (the almighty Lakshmi) may refer to Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth, fortune, fertility and prosperity; or to the fierce form of the goddess Durga which she took while protecting the world.

Places

 * Mahalaxmi, Mumbai, a neighbourhood in Mumbai, Maharashtra
 * Mahalaxmi railway station, a suburban railway station serving the neighbourhood
 * Mahalaxmi Racecourse, a horse racing track in the neighbourhood
 * Mahalaxmi Dhobi Ghat, a large open-air laundry in the neighbourhood
 * Mahalaxmi, Indore, a suburb of Indore, Madhya Pradesh
 * Mahalakshmi Layout, a suburb in north-western Bangalore, Karnataka
 * Mahalakshmi metro station, a metro station serving the suburb
 * Mahalaxmi, Lalitapur, a municipality in Lalitpur District, Nepal
 * Mahalaxmi, Dhankuta, a municipality in Dhankuta District, Nepal

Temples dedicated to Mahalakshmi

 * Mahalakshmi Temple, Kolhapur, a temple in Kolhapur, Maharashtra
 * Mahalakshmi Temple, Mumbai, a temple in Mumbai, Maharashtra
 * Mahalakshmi Temple, Hedavde, a temple in the Vasai Virar region of Maharashtra
 * Goravanahalli Mahalakshmi Temple

Other

 * Mahalakshmi (TV series), a Tamil soap opera
 * Mahalakshmi (Kannada actress), Indian film actress
 * Mahalakshmi Vrata, a Hindu ceremony
 * Mahalaxmi Iyer, an Indian playback singer
 * Mahalaxmi Express, an express train belonging to Indian Railways that runs between Mumbai and Kolhapur

title: Mahalakshmi (disambiguation)


text:
Iremel

Iremel (Ирәмәл, Иремель) is a compact mountain ridge in the Southern Ural Mountains in the republic of Bashkortostan, Russian Federation (bordering with Chelyabinsk Oblast to the north-west). The highest peak, Bolshoy Iremel (Big Iremel), or simply Iremel, stands at 1589 metres (5200 ft) high. Maly Iremel (Small Iremel), 6 kilometers north-east, stands at 1449 meters. It is the source of the River Belaya.

The highest peak of the South Urals, Mount Yamantaw (1638 meters) is located 53 kilometers south-west from Bolshoy Iremel.

authors: ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ

title: Iremel


text:
Talk:Chartreux

Copyright
Entire passages of this article have been copy-pasted from Fanciers.com. http://fanciers.com/breed-faqs/chartreux-faq.html#Temperament

Weatherlands (talk) 14:48, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Why isn't their origin securely known? That's interesting. Wetman 18:49, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Is it possible
I am pretty sure that my one cat is a Chartreux. The article states that they are nice but my cat was a beast as a kitten. I was wondering if it was still possible that he is a Chartreux.
 * Of course it is! So what if your cat doesn't fit the charteux stereotype!  All cats are different!  If one cat is the meanest, nastiest thing on Earth doesn't mean its a different breed than a little angelic kitty! B katt 500 17:17, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Image changes
Lib3rtine is currently eiting the images on many cat pages an has changed the image for Chartreux. Could this change be discussed please and the better image according to concensus decided upon. LinaMishima 18:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, many of the images that Lib3rtine has taken from Flickr are non-commercial use only, which is not free enough for Wikipedia. The adorable little Chartreux that he added to this article is one of those. FreplySpang 21:18, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I have changed the image to another Wikipedia Commons image that better represents Chartreux breed standards. The new image also has detailed information about the cat pictured. Chartreuxcats (talk) 19:36, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

CFA and GCCF
I just corrected a misleading edit which linked from the name of the Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) to the Wikipedia article for the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF). These two cat fancy organizations are not the same. The Chartreux is not even a recognized breed of the GCCF; it is not included in the GCCF's list of recognized breeds, and a search of the entire GCCF site did not even find a match for the word "Chartreux". By contrast, the CFA's Chartreux breed page is linked from the Chartreux article. Please be aware of the difference between the CFA and the GCCF. —Neuromath 19:29, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Accuracy
Are you sure a Chartreux can do any of that stuff listed in the article? I tried it with my Chartreux, and she won't do anything. Could you be specific whether the male or female can do that stuff? 68.205.128.200

Wrong Origin
The Chartreux was brought to France from missionaries from Neopolitan ice crweam flava!, they are a Stupid African breed of cat that was un♥popularized in France. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Waluigi x (talk • contribs) 19:17, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Hypoallergenic
Are Chartreux cats hypoallergenic? I believe that they are better for allergy sufferers than most domestic cats, but was after more information. Janetmfraser (talk) 12:28, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Chartreux cats are not hypoallergenic. Their coat is thicker than the average cat's.  They shed profusely and have many fine undercoat hairs that fly around everywhere.  Not recommended for allergy sufferers. Chartreuxcats (talk) 18:48, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

NEDM?
Is it possible that this is the actual breed of "Happycat"?. The picture looks similar and the article states That the cat has a "smile".125.236.191.25 (talk) 08:28, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The cat known as "Happycat" is a British Shorthair. This breed is related to the Chartreux but is not the same. Chartreuxcats (talk) 19:41, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://www.fanciers.com/breed-faqs/chartreux-faq.html. Infringing material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:11, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on Chartreux. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111207182652/http://cfa.org/Client/breedChartreux.aspx to http://www.cfa.org/client/breedChartreux.aspx

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Cat
What does it mean if the cat is outside your house for a week and then comes in my home like he nose me for ever 2601:203:C100:E8F0:6D30:3F88:D6BC:9B81 (talk) 20:11, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Chartreux


text:
Świnka coat of arms

Świńka (Polish for "Boar") is a Polish coat of arms. It was used by several szlachta (noble) families.

History
Świńka is one of the oldest coats of arms in Poland. According to legend, the history of the Świńka family began in 712, when a certain Biwoj, squire to Queen Libusza, gave her a giant boar that he had hunted down in the forest. The queen rewarded him with the coat of arms, the village of Świny (Swinehausen) in Silesia, and her daughter.

Notable bearers
Notable bearers of this coat of arms have included:
 * Józef Zajączek, Prince, General
 * Andrzej Czacki, Catholic bishop
 * Jakub Świnka (1283–1314), Archbishop of Gniezno
 * Włodzimierz Krzyżanowski, General in US Civil War

title: Świnka coat of arms


text:
Polystrate fossil

A polystrate fossil is a fossil of a single organism (such as a tree trunk) that extends through more than one geological stratum. The word polystrate is not a standard geological term. This term is typically found in creationist publications.

This term is typically applied to "fossil forests" of upright fossil tree trunks and stumps that have been found worldwide, i.e. in the Eastern United States, Eastern Canada, England, France, Germany, and Australia, typically associated with coal-bearing strata. Within Carboniferous coal-bearing strata, it is also very common to find what are called Stigmaria (root stocks) within the same stratum. Stigmaria are completely absent in post-Carboniferous strata, which contain either coal, polystrate trees, or both.

Geological explanation
In geology, such fossils are referred to as either upright fossil trunks, upright fossil trees, or T0 assemblages. According to mainstream models of sedimentary environments, they are formed by rare to infrequent brief episodes of rapid sedimentation separated by long periods of either slow deposition, nondeposition, or a combination of both.

Upright fossils typically occur in layers associated with an actively subsiding coastal plain or rift basin, or with the accumulation of volcanic material around a periodically erupting stratovolcano. Typically, this period of rapid sedimentation was followed by a period of time - decades to thousands of years long - characterized by very slow or no accumulation of sediments. In river deltas and other coastal-plain settings, rapid sedimentation is often the end result of a brief period of accelerated subsidence of an area of coastal plain relative to sea level caused by salt tectonics, global sea-level rise, growth faulting, continental margin collapse, or some combination of these factors. For example, geologists such as John W. F. Waldron and Michael C. Rygel have argued that the rapid burial and preservation of polystrate fossil trees found at Joggins, Nova Scotia directly result from rapid subsidence, caused by salt tectonics within an already subsiding pull-apart basin, and from the resulting rapid accumulation of sediments. The specific layers containing polystrate fossils occupy only a very limited fraction of the total area of any of these basins.

Yellowstone
The upright fossil trees of the Gallatin Petrified Forest in the Gallatin Range and the Yellowstone Petrified Forest at Amethyst Mountain and Specimen Ridge in Yellowstone National Park, occur buried within the lahars and other volcanic deposits comprising the Eocene Lamar River Formation as the result of periods of rapid sedimentation associated with explosive volcanism. This type of volcanism generates and deposits large quantities of loose volcanic material as a blanket over the slope of a volcano, as happened during the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Both during and for years after a period of volcanism, lahars and normal stream activity wash this loose volcanic material downslope. These processes result in the rapid burial of large areas of the surrounding countryside beneath several meters of sediment, as directly observed during the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. As with modern lahar deposits, the sedimentary layers containing upright trees of the Yellowstone petrified forest are discontinuous and very limited in areal extent. Individual layers containing upright trees and individual buried forests occupy only a very small fraction of the total area of Yellowstone National Park.

Fossil soils
Geologists have recognized innumerable fossil soils (paleosols) throughout the strata containing upright fossils at Joggins in Nova Scotia, in the Yellowstone petrified forests, in the coal mines of the Black Warrior Basin of Alabama, and at many other locations. The layer immediately underlying coal seams, often called either "seatearth" or "underclay", typically either consists of or contains a paleosol. Paleosols are soils which were formed by subaerial weathering during periods of very slow or no accumulation of sediments. Later, renewed sedimentation buried these soils to create paleosols. These paleosols are identified on the basis of the presence of structures and microstructures unique to soils; animal burrows and molds of plant roots of various sizes and types; recognizable soil-profile development; and alteration of minerals by soil processes. In many cases, these paleosols are virtually identical to modern soils.

Geologists, who have studied upright fossils found in sedimentary rocks exposed in various outcrops for decades, have described the upright fossil trees as being deeply rooted in place and typically rooted in recognizable paleosols. Researchers such as Falcon   and Rygel et al., have published detailed field-sketches and pictures of upright tree-fossils with intact root systems, which are rooted within recognizable paleosols. In the case of the upright fossil trees of the Yellowstone petrified forests, it has been found that the upright fossil trees, except for relatively short stumps, are rooted in place within the underlying sediments. Typically, the sediments within which trees are rooted have paleosols developed within them. Retallack (1981, 1997) has published pictures and diagrams of the Yellowstone upright fossil trees having intact root systems developed within paleosols found within these strata.

Formation by regeneration
Geologists have also found that some of the larger upright fossil trees found within Carboniferous coal-bearing strata show evidence of regeneration after being partially buried by sediments. In these cases, the trees were clearly alive when they were partially buried by sediments. The accumulated sediment was insufficient to kill the trees immediately because of their size. As a result, some of them developed a new set of roots from their trunks just below the new ground surface. Until they either died or were overwhelmed by the accumulating sediments, these trees would likely continue to regenerate by adding height and new roots with each increment of sediment, eventually leaving several meters of former "trunk" buried underground as sediments accumulated.

Formation by Carboniferous deglacial meltwater-pulses
In addition, part of the Carboniferous Period was a period of extensive and thick continental ice sheets. During the Carboniferous ice age, the repeated glacial – interglacial cycles caused major changes in the thickness and extent of continental ice sheets. When these ice sheets expanded in extent and thickness, eustatic sea level typically fell by over a 100 m. When these ice sheets shrank in extent and thickness, eustatic sea level typically rose again by typically over a 100 m. As occurred during the Holocene Epoch for Meltwater pulse 1A and Meltwater pulse 1B, brief episodes of rapid melting of Carboniferous, Gondwanan continental ice sheets likely caused very rapid rises in sea level that would have abruptly inundated low-lying coastal swamps and drowned the forests growing on them. Based on the sedimentology of roof strata of surface and underground coal mines and cyclothems containing the fossils of upright and in situ tree trunks, geologists proposed that the flooding of coastal swamp by deglacial meltwater pulses resulted in the rapid flooding of coastal forests, particularly along preexisting coastal rivers and streams, over large areas of coastal swamp. During and after their submergence, upright trunks of drowned coastal forests were buried by tidally influenced sedimentation.

Association with marine fossils
Geologists find nothing anomalous about upright fossil trees found in Carboniferous coal-bearing strata being associated with marine or brackish-water fossils. Because they lived on subsiding coastal plains or pull-apart basins open to the coast, it was quite frequent for subsidence to periodically outpace the accumulation of sediments such that adjacent shallow marine waters would periodically inundate coastal plains in which the trees were buried. As a result, sediments containing marine fossils would periodically accumulate within these areas before being replaced by coastal swamps - either as sediments filled in the shallow sea or as the sea level fell. Also, according to ecological reconstructions by geologists, specific assemblages of the types of trees found as upright fossils occupied brackish water, even saline coastal swamps much like modern mangrove swamps. Thus, finding marine and brackish water fossils associated with these trees is no different than finding brackish water or marine animals living in modern mangrove swamps.

A detailed study by Taylor and Vinn (2006) of the microstructure of fossils which have been traditionally identified as "Spirorbis" in the geological literature revealed that they consist of the remains of at least two completely different animals. Taylor and Vinn discovered that the "Spirorbis" fossils found in sedimentary strata, including the Joggins and other Carboniferous coal measures deposited from the Ordovician to Triassic periods are the remains of an extinct order of lophophorates (now called microconchids) unrelated to modern marine tube-worms (Annelids) to which the genus Spirorbis belongs. This contradicts arguments made by Harold Coffin and other creationists that "Spirorbis" fossils within strata containing polystrate fossils indicate their deposition in a marine environment, because these fossils are classified as the remains of extinct fresh and brackish water microconchids instead of the remains of the marine genera Spirorbis as they have been misidentified in the geologic literature.

Quaternary examples
Scientists interpret polystrate fossils as fossils buried in a geologically short time span - either by one large depositional event or by several smaller ones. Geologists see no need to invoke a global flood to explain upright fossils. This position of geologists is supported by numerous documented examples, a few of which are discussed in the paragraphs below, of buried upright tree-trunks that have been observed buried in the Holocene volcanic deposits of Mount St. Helens, Skamania County, Washington, and Mount Pinatubo, Philippines; in the deltaic and fluvial sediments of the Mississippi River Delta; and in glacial deposits within the midwestern United States. These buried upright trees demonstrate that conventional geologic processes are capable of burying and preserving trees in an upright position such that in time, they will become fossilized.

Volcanic deposits
At this time, the best documented occurrences of unfossilized buried upright trees occur within the historic and late-Holocene volcanic deposits of Mount St. Helens (Skamania County, Washington) and of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. At Mount St. Helens, both unfossilized and partially fossilized trees have occurred in many outcrops of volcanic debris and mud flows (lahars) and pyroclastic flow deposits, which date from 1885 to over 30,000 BP., along the South Toutle and other rivers. Late Holocene forests of upright trees also occur within the volcanic deposits of other Cascade Range volcanoes. In the space of a few years after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, the erosion of loose pyroclastic deposits covering the slopes of the mountain generated a series of volcanic lahars, which ultimately buried large parts of the countryside along major streams draining these slopes beneath several meters of volcanic sediments. The repeated deposition of sediments by volcanic lahars and by sediment-filled rivers not only created innumerable polystrate trees, but also "polystrate" telephone-poles, churches, and houses, over a period a few years. The volcanic deposits enclosing modern upright trees are often virtually identical in their sedimentary structures, external and internal layering, texture, buried soils, and other general character to the volcanic deposits containing the Yellowstone buried forests. As in case of modern forests buried by lahars, the individual buried forests of the Yellowstone Petrified Forest and the layers containing them are very limited in their areal extent.

Deltaic deposits
Within excavations for Interstate Highway 10 in the United States of America, and in borrow pits, in landfills, and archaeological surveys, unfossilized upright trees have been found buried within late Holocene, even historic, fluvial and deltaic sediments underlying the surface of the Mississippi River Delta and the Atchafalaya Basin of Louisiana. In one case, borrow pits dug in the natural levees of Bayou Teche near Patterson, Louisiana, have exposed completely buried, 4 to 6 feet (1.2 to 1.8 meters) high, upright trunks of cypress trees. Northeast of Donaldsonville, Louisiana, a borrow pit excavated for fill used to maintain nearby artificial levees, exposed three levels of rooted upright tree trunks stacked on top of each other lying completely buried beneath the surface of Point Houmas, a patch of floodplain lying within a meander loop of the current course of the Mississippi River. While searching for buried archaeological sites, archaeologists excavated a 12 ft (3.6 meter) high upright rooted cypress tree completely buried within a natural levee of the Atchafalaya River within the Indian Bayou Wildlife Management Area just south of Krotz Springs, Louisiana. Radiocarbon dates and historic documents collected for this archaeological survey, during which this and other upright trees were found, of the Indian Bayou Wildlife Management Area demonstrated that these upright trees were buried in the 1800s, during the initial diversion of Mississippi River's flow into the Atchafalaya River.

Glacial deposits
Unfossilized, late Pleistocene upright trees have been found buried beneath glacial deposits within North America along the southern edge of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. These buried forests were created when the southern edge of the Laurentide Ice Sheet locally dammed valleys. As a result, meltwater lakes filled these valleys and submerged forests within them. Sediments released by the melting of the adjacent ice sheet rapidly filled these lakes, which quickly buried and preserved the submerged forests lying within them. One forest of in situ, 24,000-year-old unfossilized upright trees was exposed by excavations for a quarry near Charleston, Illinois. Excavations for a tailings pond about Marquette, Michigan, exposed an in situ forest of unfossilized trees, which are about 10,000 years old, buried in glacial lake and stream sediments.

title: Polystrate fossil