The Plaza.

As The Great Gatsby, the most hyped movie since, well, Iron Man 3, steamrolls into theaters, two hotels are proudly trumpeting their Gatsby connections.

Most obvious is The Plaza. When Daisy suggests Gatsby, Tom, Jordan and Nick drive to Manhattan, they beeline for the Plaza, a favorite of F. Scott Fitzgerald and wife Zelda. “They lived at the Biltmore but drank cocktails at the Plaza – orange blossoms spiked with bootleg gin,” writes Sally Cline, author of Zelda: Her Voice in Paradise, in New York magazine. Ernest Hemingway once told Fitzgerald to “leave his liver to Princeton and his heart to the Plaza” – or so the Plaza website tells us.

The Plaza appears as a high-profile supporting player in the movie, even though the interior scenes depicting the hotel were recreated in a studio. That hasn’t stopped the hotel from happily linking its fortunes to the film – and Fitzgerald. (more…)

We finally got around to seeing the year’s top fashion documentary Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel.  In the spirit of her fabled Why Don’t’ You lists that spiced up an earlier iteration of Harper’s Bazaar, we offer Overnight New York’s Why Don’t You: the NYC Hotel holiday version. Here’s what to see and do at New York hotels while the holidays are still humming.

Take holiday tea at The Peninsula Forget petite fours. The Peninsula New York serves up a special holiday tea that’s as seasonal as Santa (or midnight champagne).  Brightening the pastry plate are bite-size fruit cake, crescent macarons, peppermint chocolate cupcakes and eggnog pecan tarts. A special children’s tea includes snowman marshmallows, peppermint cupcakes and Christmas cookies.

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We’re deep into the season of bright shiny objects. Some of the prettiest, cleverest, liveliest, happiest, wittiest – you get the idea — hang from the branches of New York City’s hotel trees. For a dose of instant cheer, check out our top trees of 2012.

Big Tree — This towering faux fir looks utterly at home in the lobby of the Four Seasons New York. (more…)

Hotel shops sell a lot more than Band-Aids, bathrobes and bottled water.  Many stock amusing, even unusual items you’d be happy to give – or receive.

And here’s the best part. Many offer online as well as in-hotel shopping. So browse what caught our eye. There’s still time! (more…)

In the hidden room.

A suite is supposed to have more than one room, but what about a secret room?

At first glance the Carlton’s new Speakeasy Suite consists of a freshly renovated bedroom outfitted with 1920s inflections like a Stickley bureau and an imposing sleigh bed upholstered in leather the color of that forbidden 20s brew, bourbon. (more…)

Caught at The Plaza.

As advertised: they really do have palms at The Plaza’s Palm Court. We spotted this one today, peeking out between closed French doors. It reminded us of a certain scene in Sixteen Candles. But it could just as easily be a palm’s version of a high-five.

No surprise Arbitrage was a hit with New York hotel viewers last month. The sleek financial thriller set in Bernie Madoff’s pre-incarceration Manhattan features lavish footage of two New York City hotels, The Pierre and The Plaza and a big kiss to The Sherry-Netherland.

Elsewhere in hotel rooms around the nation and Canada Arbitrage came in fourth (Marvel’s The Avengers is uber-resilient). Here’s the complete list, as always provided by LodgeNet, suppliers of in-room entertainment to 1.6 million hotel rooms in the U.S. and Canada. (more…)

Camera ready: Le Caprice at The Pierre.

You’re out of luck if you wanted to try the Eggs Benedict at  Le Caprice. The Pierre hotel’s gleaming by-the-numbers copy of the popular London brasserie closed earlier this year. (We wonder who got their hands on the gorgeous David Bailey photos of Jean Shrimpton that dressed the walls.)

But you can watch Richard Gere and Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, cast as a mercurial pair of financial sharks, power breakfast together at Le Caprice in Arbitrage, (more…)

Roses at Jumeirah Essex House.

“Florals? For spring? Ground breaking.” We hear you, Miranda Priestly. But strolling through a half dozen or so hotel lobbies, we couldn’t resist whipping out a camera and celebrating spring with flowers.

In the early and mid 20^th century a flower shop was a must at large urban hotels. Besides eye-catching blooms for the lobby, weddings and parties on the premises, the shop sent flowers to guest rooms on behalf of friends and associates (guests checked in for longer than a night or two in the years before air travel).  The shop also stocked the boutonnieres and corsages that were the mark of the well dressed.

Such shops are a rarity today, but the custom of dressing the lobby with fresh blooms lives on. (more…)

We love it when a New York hotel makes a cameo appearance in a novel we like.  So imagine our glee upon opening Rules of Civility, Amor Towles’ exquisitely layered portrait of strivers and high society in late 1930s Manhattan, and following the characters into not one but three hotels, all beauties.

The Depression-era novel is set more in the realm of an Americanized Nancy Mitford or Evelyn Waugh than John Steinbeck, with a silky soundtrack along the lines of Benny Goodman and Billie Holiday. So small surprise the characters meet for drinks at the King Cole Bar at the St Regis and catch a taxi in front of The Carlyle.

But those are walk-ons compared to The Plaza, where Anne Grandyn, a pivotal character, keeps a suite overlooking Central Park. (more…)