Plaza Doorknobs

I used to like to wander through the Plaza Hotel, when it was still a hotel and not a condo where no one lives, where women get trapped in the garbage room screaming for their lives and bloodying their fingers trying to scratch their way out because no one can hear them, because no one is there, because everyone is a Russian billionaire and never in residence.

Anyway, yes, it was better before. It was lively, beloved, and also dowdy in the right way, a little worn around the edges. Now the place is like a crypt glossed in lacquer, with the Oak Room shuttered and the basement turned into an upscale shopping mall stuffed to the gills with precious little macarons.



There is one item worth noting down there, however. The Plaza Boutique, the gift shop, sells old Plaza Hotel doorknobs.



Removed when the Plaza was renovated and converted to condos, they're antiques and not cheap, running from $350 - $550. They'd look insane on my crappy, hollow-core doors, but I was tempted. Maybe you have a nicer door in which one could proudly perch. Sitting on their display tray, they seem to vibrate with the past, with the hands of so many ghosts.