A stay at the Plaza ... before Eloise moves on

The fantasy trip to New York City, and the Plaza Hotel, does not get off to a good start. At 6 p.m. on a Thursday, we open Room 462 and discover that it has yet to be cleaned. No sheets. No towels. No little soaps and shampoos.

No key to the mini bar.

When my traveling companion calls guest services, she is informed that the mini bar is “one of the first things to go.”

“Let’s go stay somewhere else,” she sniffs. I ponder the possibility for a nanosecond. The place is a little run-down: Carpets are fraying, paint is peeling, and in-room safes no longer work.

The hotel, a landmark at Fifth Avenue and Central Park South, was to close April 30 for a $350-million renovation, but meanwhile the future of the venerable hotel may be up in the air. A new owner has been jousting with preservationists and unions about closing more than half of the rooms and cobbling them together to form expensive condominiums.

But still. It’s the Plaza. Home of the tearoom. Central Park carriage rides. And Eloise.

The trip was inspired by several things -- a colleague’s 50th birthday party, a yearning to tour the newly redone Museum of Modern Art. But the primary motivation was the longing of my traveling companion, who spent her grade-school years immersed in the great books of the Western-little-girl canon, including Kay Thompson’s “The Absolutely Essential Eloise.” Eloise lived at the Plaza. Eloise mastered room service. Eloise had no fear of people in uniforms.

For years my companion has detailed her fantasy New York excursion: We will stay where Eloise stayed, we will shop, take in a play, ride the subway. But a few days before departure, I worry about the premise. She is 13 now, and her reading tastes run toward Us magazine rather than Eloise; she prefers cut-off denim skirts and eyeliner to pinafores and knee socks. She’s racing ahead; I’m holding her back. We skirmish over homework, bedtime, visible bra straps, instant messaging.

And now the Plaza isn’t living up to expectations. Is this trip going to work out? We avoid asking ourselves the question out loud; instead we request maid service and head off to dinner.

There’s exhilaration in a first cab ride through the streets of Manhattan, scanning for the tops of skyscrapers through a rear window. There’s amazement in watching New Yorkers ignore anything resembling a traffic signal. And there’s comfort in food.

We dine with friends at Tabla on Madison Square Park, sampling various dishes inspired by Indian cuisine. My companion finds the food to her liking and phones a friend in Los Angeles, announcing, “We’re in New York! We’re eating dinner in New York!” Afterward, we walk three blocks in the rain with a waitress who is determined to help us hail a cab. And we do.

Meanwhile, the room at the Plaza has become much more presentable. Perhaps we’ll stay after all.

Eleven hours later, our room service breakfast (which at $80 seems the world’s most expensive) arrives. The butter and jam and English muffins provide enough fuel for about two hours at the Museum of Modern Art, a 12-minute walk away. We love Magritte and Van Gogh and De Kooning. We marvel at Picasso. But when we reach the floor devoted to design, my companion starts to flag. Her spirits are temporarily revived by the purchase of a Picasso poster and Picasso postcards, and she announces, “I’m going to hang all his nudes on my wall.”

We walk to Broadway for a late lunch at Blue Fin, where a California roll and a chicken panini make the world right again. The afternoon is further burnished with the purchase of a $7 pair of Jackie O. sunglasses. After a brief rest at the Plaza (where a friendly housekeeper steals a remote control from another room to replace the one we’ve somehow lost), we head off for the birthday party.

We have two hours to kill and spend it on Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side. Most of the shops are out of our price range, but we manage to patronize a Starbucks, a Godiva chocolatier (“Four truffles, please”), a boutique with “really cute T-shirts” and a shoe store called Sacco.

After the party, we return to the Plaza. Even at 11:30 p.m., the lobby is full of guests, many of them little girls eager to have their photo taken with a portrait of Eloise. My traveling companion agrees reluctantly to the same pose. She stands sideways and flips her hair over her shoulder before she faces the camera. No smiles allowed.

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Undamped enthusiasm

The next morning we take a cab to Gramercy Park, where friends are staying, pick them up and head off to the Chinatown/Little Italy area.

It’s raining and windy, but we are not deterred. A walk down Mulberry Street yields great rewards: a deconstructed jacket at Lilith, a pair of earrings at a miniature store, a vintage dress for my traveling companion, purchased at a shop called Hooky.

We duck into Balthazar, a nearby brasserie; it’s packed but we somehow snag a table and have what I’ve always thought to be the quintessential L.A. experience: We think we spot an actress who used to be on “L.A. Law.” We fill up on onion soup and salads and marvel that New Yorkers are still lunching at 3 p.m.

The next morning is a Sunday. Before we venture out, my companion buys a copy of “The Golden Rules of Etiquette at the Plaza.” Her choice of literature is ... surprising.

The streets around the hotel are relatively quiet as we make our way to Bloomingdale’s a couple of blocks away. The flagship store at 59th and Lexington is calm as we inspect each floor of luxurious merchandise.

We slip into one of the store restaurants for a quick lunch and slip out with modest purchases. At least we have a big brown bag from Bloomies to remind us of our time in that temple of designer goods. My companion cradles a bag with six sample vials of perfume to remind her of the saleswomen who bombarded her with scents as we walked through the cosmetics department.

Friends meet us back at the Plaza for a brisk walk to the Gershwin Theater on 51st for a 3 p.m. performance of “Wicked,” the musical that purports to depict the real relationship between the good and bad witches of “The Wizard of Oz.” We leave the theater shortly before 6, elated and hungry. Rather than walk to our dinner spot, we hop on the subway. My traveling companion is transfixed by the relatively short ride. “I love the subway,” she announces to anyone who will listen.

And, she adds, she’s ready to move to New York in just five short years.

We are early for our reservation at Artisanal on 32nd Street in the Murray Hill neighborhood, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem at 6:30 p.m. in New York; most of the tables are empty.

The restaurant is a bistro of sorts, a wine-and-cheese place; we start and end with fondue, cheese to open and chocolate to close. My companion embraces the dipping concept.

After dinner we return for our last night at the Plaza, but before we settle in, we yield to temptation and climb into one of the horse-drawn carriages that wait in a line for tourists who want a pricey ride through Central Park.

Our driver is from Kiev, Ukraine, and lives in the city; the horse, we are told, lives on the island of Manhattan. The air is cold, and my companion is more than willing to snuggle underneath a blanket. That’s a rare occurrence these days and makes the $80 fare seem somehow less onerous.

When we return to Room 462, we contemplate the next day (an early wake-up call, a trip to the Statue of Liberty and a 3 p.m. cab ride to JFK) but instead of retiring at a reasonable hour, we watch reruns of “Law & Order” until 1 a.m. and spot several locations that we’ve been to in the last 48 hours.

Our journey back to Los Angeles is long (70 minutes in a cab, two hours at the airport, five hours on a plane, 40 minutes waiting for a gate, 30 minutes waiting for a cab). My traveling companion is drained by the time we walk into our home at 10:30 p.m. She watches another rerun of “Law & Order” and then demands that I accompany her to her bedroom.

“Thank you for taking me to New York, Mommy,” she says.

I might actually do it again.

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Alice Short is the daily Calendar editor.