New York ? The Plaza, perhaps New York’s most iconic hotel, turned 100 on Monday in true Gilded Age style, with a 50-piece orchestra, a fireworks display and a 12-foot-high cake baked as an exact replica of the hotel.

“Nothing tops the beauty and elegance of the Plaza,” said event planner David Monn, as he oversaw the finishing touches of the extravaganza.

“This is one of the most important corners of New York and this needs to be an important evening.”

The event commemorated that moment on Oct. 1, 1907, when Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, the heir to the family’s railroad fortune, checked into the Plaza in a carefully choreographed stunt. Rooms then went for between $2.50 and $25 a day.

“It’s held up a mirror to New York for the past 100 years, always able to reflect the city around it,” said Curtis Gathje, author of “At the Plaza” and a former room-service waiter there.

Elad Properties bought the building in 2004 for $675 million, and after a $400 million renovation converted 800 hotel rooms into 181 condos, 152 pieds-a-terre hotel-condos and 134 traditional hotel rooms.

The Plaza wasn’t New York’s first grand hotel; that distinction belonged to Astor House, which opened in 1837, and to the original Waldorf-Astoria, which opened in 1893.