At the end of this month, the Plaza Hotel will close its fabled doors so that its new owner, Elad Properties, can begin the process of converting the bulk of its rooms into condominiums and renting out new stores.

　　Although much of the plan remains hazy, the prospect of a construction crew stomping through the Plaza's ornate entrance has provoked a cascade of personal, sepia-tinted recollections among anxious New Yorkers. As with most treasured places, it is not just the architecture and décor that people so prize, but the memories that were born there.

　　The new plans for the Plaza have awakened recollections of the fate of the old Pennsylvania Station, the 1910 McKim, Mead & White masterpiece, the razing of which in 1963 ultimately led to the creation of the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission.

　　In the 40 years since its founding, the commission has designated 1,119 individual landmarks and 83 historic districts, protecting about 23,000 fine buildings that would otherwise have been vulnerable to demolition. Among them is the Plaza Hotel itself, whose exterior, but not interior, was given landmark protection in 1969.