Literary license
New York's venerable Algonquin, where lunch imitates art
The Algonquin Hotel defines style, New York style, as it has for almost all of its 95-year existence. By dint of location alone, it was destined to be a place that drew brilliance and nurtured it.
When it opened in 1902, the hotel's brick and limestone facade fit right in the neighborhood with Sherry's and Delmonico's, two of the city's most popular restaurants, and the Yale, Harvard, Bar Association, New York Yacht and Century Clubs, all nearby. Through the years, Gertrude Stein, William Faulkner, Maya Angelou, John Barrymore and countless others have been attracted by the hotel's oak-paneled lobby, crystal chandeliers and damask chairs.
The hotel gained fame -- and notoriety -- beginning in 1919 with a practical joke that sparked the Algonquin Round Table -- and 10 years of wit in first the hotel's Oak (then Pergola) Room and later the Rose Room.
To avenge a snub by New York Times critic Alexander Woollcott, press agent John Peter Toohey threw a party to welcome Woollcott back from service in World War I -- misspelling the critic's name on invitations and banners. But Woollcott took the snipe in good humor, and Toohey suggested at the end of the party that the group "do this every day." They did.
For 10 years, the likes of Vanity Fair writer Dorothy Parker and New York Tribune columnist Franklin P. Adams met for lunch at the Algonquin, spinning ideas and gossip and becoming a focal point for young writers and actors who made New York their home -- or visited often enough to become quasi-Round Tablers.
The Algonquin has maintained that atmosphere through the years. The Oak Room has been named New York's best cabaret venue by New York Magazine, and the hotel has begun two programs that evoke those heady days of the 1920s and '30s: The Opera Dinner, featuring performances by the Metropolitan Opera and City Opera, on Sunday evenings; and The Spoken Word, including short plays, readings and other performances, on Monday evenings.
The Algonquin maintains a handful of ... well ... quirky traditions, among them the annual New Year's midnight march of the hotel staff through the lobby -- banging on pots and pans and dimming all the lights.
And there's also the Algonquin's resident cat, traditionally named Hamlet, who answers to the name of Matilda in her current incarnation. Matilda has full run of the hotel, and uses it carte blanche to nap in the lobby or join private parties.
The hotel's original name was The Puritan -- but manager and later owner Frank Case, who helped nurture the Algonquin Round Table, thought the name too straight-laced, so he changed it.
The Argyle | The Pollard | The Peninsula | The Algonquin | The Watergate
Concierge | Front Desk
BACK TO TOP
© 1997 Cable News Network, Inc.
A Time Warner Company
All Rights Reserved.