“The Great Gatsby” Meets the Park Plaza

What would this city do without The Park Plaza? And is it wrong to want to high five a building every time you drive by it?

It's cameoed in approximately five dozen movies, give or take, and videos, too (yeah, we're thinking of Steve Perry's "Oh Sherrie," a production that could not resist the hotel's old grand staircase). And when it needs to instantly enter another era for a party? No problem.

Especially if that era happens to be the 1920s. The MacArthur Park-facing landmark will do just that on Saturday, Dec. 1 when it transforms into the Long Island of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby." drink | eat | play are the hosts behind the flapper-iffic bash, which will assume a speakeasy air mixed with an upper-crust, bored-people-at-play bent. (We're not spoiling the novel for you, we hope.)

General admission is $25 and costumes are definitely encouraged. They don't have to all be of the sequined-headbands-with-feathers ilk. You might think garden party, which means a seersucker suit and boater hat.

It's a fine way to stave off your need to see Baz Luhrmann's much-talked-about "The Great Gatsby," which was moved from a holiday release to next spring.

We're talking about this now because drink | eat | play nights do sell out. But figure that is very much like one of the bashes in the book: exclusive. Everyone wants in.

We can't imagine what time and place the Park Plaza will assume next. It really is one of our city's great chameleons, as a set and as a party place. Yep, we're high-fiving it, and we don't care who sees us.

The Scene

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