The Plaza Hotel in NYC

by Mary
(Maryland)

Its has been quite some time since I've experienced this, but felt it needed to be shared. I can find no other stories of the Plaza Hotel, depicting any sort of "haunting".

In 2004, my family and I took a two day trip to visit NYC, and we stayed at the Plaza Hotel, located across from Central Park. After the day's activities we headed back to our room, myself, my sister, and my mother, only to not be able to actually get into our room.

We called to the front desk, told them none of our keys were working, so an employee came up to use a master key. Even he could not get the door open. So after many attempts, we got our way in, and they transfered us to another room, to avoid the same thing happening.

Well in our second room, on another floor, the same thing happened. Once we got in (after the help of an employee) the room was insufferably hot, and the thermostat was not working. Keep in mind the Plaza is a luxury hotel.

At this point, we called some relatives who were staying in another room, to tell them of what was happening. My Uncle called to the front desk to complain to the night manager - his name was John - who apologized and had us move to the 15th floor. Our room was one of two down a long narrow hallway.

Finally we got settled in, closed the door and locked it. We were going to call our relatives who were also staying in the hotel to let them know we were finally ok, but the phone in the room wasn't working. It wasn't a big deal, so when we went to walk to their room, we couldn't open the door.

This time, we couldn't get out. We couldn't even open the door after it was technically unlocked. My mother started banging on the door, hoping there was someone in the room across from us, who could call and get us help. She was yelling "Can someone please help us? We're stuck!" and we heard someone reply with the same statement, almost as if mocking my mother, come from what we thought was the hallway. When we looked through the peep hole, however, there was no one. She continued to pound on the door and jiggle the door handle, to which there was no budging. We continued to hear voices in the hallway, even though we saw no one.


Eventually, what we assume was security because he was a huge man, knocked on our door. We told him the door wouldn't open and he tried to pry it open. No keys would work, none of his attempts, until finally the door just opened as if nothing had ever been wrong. He seemed a little bewildered and left as quickly as he had shown up.

We did not have any more door issues, however the remainder of the night was spend with the lights left on because of a shadowy figure that we saw eminate from the closet. It remained in our room for quite some time. There was a definite uneasy and almost hostile atmosphere in the room.

We called my Uncle one last time via my mom's cell phone, who called down to the front desk again to speak to John and complain.

In the morning, after little sleep we met up with my family and told them of the ridiculous series of events from last night. When my Uncle approached the front desk, and told them the night manager John had been completely unhelpful, they seemed shocked and baffled because there was no one on staff the previous night with the name John.

We never have visited the Plaza Hotel again...