#6 in Top 20 New York for Business · ★★★★★
The Plaza
Corner-suite meeting room, Madison Avenue access — the deal-signing hotel since 1907.
Corner-suite meeting room, Madison Avenue access — the deal-signing hotel since 1907.
"Corner-suite meeting room, Madison Avenue access — the deal-signing hotel since 1907."
The Plaza Hotel opened on October 1, 1907 at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Central Park South, and has been the symbol of New York palace hospitality for 117 years. The current operating model — under Saudi Arabian Sahara Group ownership since 2018 — runs 282 hotel rooms (the rest of the building is condominium residences) and the recently-renovated suite product. The Plaza's strength as a business hotel is geometric: the corner of 59th and Fifth is the working centre of midtown, with Bergdorf Goodman across the street, the Apple flagship one block south, the Sherry-Netherland next door, and Central Park as the lobby's view. The Eloise Suite (the children's-book-themed corner unit) and the Royal Plaza Suite are the flagship rooms; the Champagne Suite is the working-executive option with a separate sitting room. The Palm Court (the lobby tea room) is the working meeting space. The Plaza is the right pick for the business trip where positioning matters more than infrastructure — the address is the asset, the building is recognised by every taxi driver, and the meeting at the Palm Court tells the client everything the meeting needs to say. The trade-off is that the rooms are smaller than newer competitors and the operating standard is below the Aman or Mandarin tier.
Champagne Suite (working-executive option) or Royal Plaza Suite for the corner-flagship.
Palm Court 11am tea is the working morning meeting — corner-table booking required. The Champagne Bar (off the lobby) is a quieter alternative for the after-meeting drink. Bergdorf Goodman across Fifth Avenue runs a private-shopper service for clients you need to entertain.
The Plaza sits within our broader Top 20 Hotels in New York for Business list. It scored an aggregate 9.7/10 across the three editorial criteria — competitive against the field but, on business-specific factors, the angle above is what earned its rank. For the alternatives in the same New York neighbourhood, see Fifth Avenue and Central Park South and adjacent. For a different city entirely, see the related lists below.
If you have already chosen the dates, our editor recommends booking the room twelve weeks ahead. The best suites with the right view orientation go first, and inventory for the popular months is quoted in months, not weeks. Suite-level rooms with private plunge pools or terraces — the ones that earn this rank — are typically the first to sell out.