Photo Credit: Roving Rube. Viewpoint: 59th Avenue at 6th Ave, looking south; 2/11/02 4:45 PM.
Notes (Roving Rube): The former Barbizon-Plaza hotel hosted many colorful characters:
"I went to see Frida [Kahlo] at her hotel, Barbizon Plaza, which she can't stand since the elevator boys snub her because they can see she is no rich person. The other day she called one of them a 'son of a bitch.' It's refreshing to finally be around someone who will speak their mind and not give a damn about consequences!" Lucienne Bloch - Diary entry, 1931 [quoted in aquirregallery.com for a show of Bloch's photography; see also everettcollection.com for a photo of Frida and Diego in their room).
"Escudero [leader of a troupe of flamenco dancers] ... arrived in New York with his pianist, his guitarist and two young Gypsy girls. One of them was Carmita García, his companion for so many years. They and the company moved into the decorous Barbizon-Plaza Hotel and within an hour the rooms looked like a battle field. 'Escudero was hungry and ordered something to eat. When they served the food, he sat at the table, but he disregarded the knife, fork and napkin, serving himself with his fingers in a swift, efficient way. At the same time, Carmita was wandering around unwrapping packets. Her method was to throw it all out of the suitcases and toss it on the bed, the chairs, and often on the floor. Stockings and skirts, all over the place, on the table, mixed up in Escudero's food. ... Their conversation was a sort of fantastic series of references of a more or less erotic type, combined with suggestion of a variety of incestuous relations'. ... When Escudero danced his farruca, there was not a single eye among the audience that did not devour his herculean figure in his fine leather trousers, following his movements with the delicacy of a cat when hunching up, when stretching and when leaning toward the ground and when getting up again so swiftly ones breath stops still in the throat." (from flamenco-world.com)
The gangster "Lucky" Luciano also stayed here under an alias -- but of course "Lucky Luciano" was itself an alias.
The hotels also seems to have had an off-Broadway theater, art gallery, convention center and grand ballroom (perhaps the latter also was used for the other three?), and a search on Barbizon-Plaza on the web brings up an interesting mix of links, most pertaining to events from the 30's to the mid 60's, which to the Rube is the era of Manhattan's greatest "glamour".
The building was renamed "Trump Parc" by you-know-who in the late 80's, and converted to condominiums. So to stay there, you have to rent or buy.
The Rube has always been fascinated by the roof. In the past he had speculated it was some European way of grouping all the chimneys together into common channels. But in fact it is a Manhattan original.
Note in and how the projecting limestone forms at the top of the building are matched in gold on the roof. ... And what do those little white boxes are on each of the ledges do?
shows a magnificent patio which would give tremendous views of 7th Avenue and Central Park. Is this a common space for tenants, or is it only for the person who owns that floor?