The prayer vigil to save the Plaza Hotel, which featured none other than the Reverend Jesse Jackson, illuminated nothing so much as the fact that the showdown over the famed landmark is shaping up as a test of Mayor Bloomberg. The very idea of a prayer vigil seemed a bit bizarre, as if the union leaders were counting on the Almighty to smite the Plaza’s new owner, Elad Properties, before the company could convert the building to condominiums. But what is the religious law that would prevent a private company from responding to consumer demand? The owner of the building believes that what people want is more residential and retail space. What is unholy about homes?

It is ironical that letting the new owners renovate and transform the building will ensure its survival. Previous owners, losing money on the Plaza year after year, weren’t willing or able to invest in the upkeep of the 98-year-old building. The Plaza’s previous owners, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal of Saudi Arabia and the London-based company Millennium & Copthorne, spent $40 million on renovations when they purchased the property from Donald Trump in 1995.Yet the Plaza had a pretax loss of $1.8 million in 2003, the last full year they owned it. “The hotel needs renovation, and I don’t want to spend any more money on it,” the chairman of Millennium & Copthorne, Kwek Leng Beng, was quoted as saying in the New York Times.

Elad Properties, in contrast, plans a $350 million renovation. That’s what happens when developers see a way to anticipate a profit. No doubt many New Yorkers would rather see the Plaza never change at all. “I am with the Plaza more than I am with my wife,” a hotel waiter named Marko, a Croatian immigrant, complained to the Times of London yesterday. “She is a jewel of America. If she is gone, I go back to Croatia. There will be nothing here for me, nothing here for anyone who comes to New York.” We’re not unaffected by such melodrama. But New York has remained the most vibrant city in the world precisely because we haven’t wrapped the city in plastic to preserve it frozen in time. If New York is opposed to anything, it’s standing still.

Which is why so many are watching to see how Mayor Bloomberg and his administration will resist the temptation to play God on Fifth Avenue. The mayor has set himself up as a mediator between Elad Properties and the hotel workers union, trying to save some union jobs in an election year. “It’s a question of can we find ways to encourage them to have more hotel rooms, because the more hotel rooms you have, the more the jobs will be protected,” Mr. Bloomberg said recently. “But it’s a sign of success that people want to live here and are willing to buy rooms in hotels and turn them into condominiums.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s political interests seem to be clashing a bit with his business instincts. It really is a mark of success that New York can attract a developer who wants to invest a billion dollars, all told, in a new mixed-use facility in Manhattan. And the jobs created at the new Plaza – hotel, retail, and service jobs – wouldn’t depend on the survival of a money-losing enterprise like the current Plaza. Nor are jobs the only issue. The Landmarks Preservation Commission plans to hold a series of public hearings to decide whether to declare the interior of the Plaza Hotel as a landmark, perhaps seizing control of the Oak Room and Oak Bar, the Palm Court, the Grand Ballroom, and the lobbies.

Meantime, the Landmarks Commission is meeting today to approve an expansion of the Whitney Museum of Art that would demolish two landmarked 19th-century rowhouses, modify other landmarked residences, and alter the landmarked Breuer Building on the corner of Madison Avenue and 75th Street. Where is the coalition of celebrities praying for these landmarks? Why, instead of embracing only this narrow arts-related interest, can’t the city’s elites see the broader public interest in a dynamic and vital city? Not only in respect of the Plaza but elsewhere, like the West Side stadium. Instead of derailing Wal-Mart and BJ’s Wholesale Club at the City Council, why not let the consumers of Queens and the Bronx decide? Despite all the prayers offered at yesterday’s “Save the Plaza” rally, the city government is neither almighty nor all-knowing. Thousands of New Yorkers will be watching this election year to see whether Mr. Bloomberg believes in the market.