On W. 44th, next door to the New York Yacht Club, the Harvard Club, and what was once my favorite Persian restaurant [It was named "Tehran", and it didn't survive the aftermath of the Iranian Hostage Crisis] is a slender hotel of some significant literary history. So much so that the 100th anniversary of the first meeting of the hotel's most famous collection of characters is being celebrated this summer.
Opened in 1902, originally as a long-term residential hotel to be named "The Puritan" [that produces a chuckle, given the hotel's history], the owners realized, as their location was perfect for serving the theatrical and publishing communities, that the renamed Algonquin would serve as standard, rent-by-the-night hotel with the intention of providing a pleasant midday and, especially, end-of-work meeting place. Thus, they built up the restaurant and bars to a standard that attracted transient performers, playwrights, and authors; and familiar regulars.
However, it wasn't until the hotel's second decade, in the aftermath of World War I and the beginning of the Jazz Age, that The Algonquin came into its own. One day, in happenstance, a collection of writers associated with Vanity Fair magazine met for lunch in the hotel's Rose Room, a small pleasant restaurant located behind the original lobby, and had such a good time that they decided to meet every weekday. The original group expanded some, were given their own, round table at which to meet each day, were assigned their own waiter, and became a recognized, even legendary, source of wit and critical thinking during the expansion of American literary expression.
While the names of those who gathered in the Rose Room are no longer as familiar as they once were, their influence on our culture is undeniable. Of the original group, included were:
Robert Benchley - a syndicated humor columnist and star of short comedy features at the movies.
Heywood Broun - sportswriter and founder of the American Newspaper Guild
Franklin P. Adams - newspaper columnist and radio performer
Marc Connelly - Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and performer
Ruth Hale - reporter specializing in women's rights
George S. Kaufman - award-winning and prolific playwright
Harpo Marx - yes, he of the famous brothers; ironically silent on screen, a verbal wit in real life
Dorothy Parker - most prominent of the women magazine writers of her era; a screenwriter, too
Harold Ross - founder of The New Yorker magazine, the publication of which was first proposed at the hotel.
Robert E. Sherwood - another award-winning playwright and screenwriter [Waterloo Bridge, The Petrified Forest, etc.]
and
Alexander Woollcott - theater and social critic for The New Yorker, and of such influence that at least two play and film characters have been based on his memorable personality. [For those curious, the title character in The Man Who Came to Dinner and the villain in Laura.]
Others would come and go over the next decade, but the so-called "Vicious Circle" of the Rose Room would leave a lingering imprint on wit and writing for much longer.
However, there are other attributes to the hotel that are memorable and linger to this day. Not the least of which is the tradition of a hotel cat who will wander about the lobby, bar, and restaurant and behave indifferently to the comings and goings of the clientele. There have been a series of cats reaching back to the 1920's with the first, named "Hamlet" by and for the actor John Barrymore, stretching through three Matildas and six other Hamlets, including the current resident. Each year, in the cat's honor, there is a cat fashion show.
Newly published writers, when in the city on a publicity tour, used to be able to stay a night for free, as long as they donated a signed edition of their book to the hotel's library. They still get a substantial discount and the hotel's collection is representative of 20th century literature both great and, well, not so much. Still, it's the thought that counts.
Of course, there have been artistic works that have been written or composed in the hotel's rooms, bars and lobby, too. Not the least of which is "I Could Have Danced All Night", banged out on a piano by Lerner and Lowe for over 24 straight hours to the gross annoyance of the other guests. They probably weren't all that annoyed in retrospect after the musical "My Fair Lady" became the toast of Broadway and, eventually, Hollywood.
Speaking of annoying, the self-consciously reclusive J.D. Salinger, author of the tedious, and often high school-mandated, novel Catcher in the Rye [better known as We Have to Read This, Why?] would stay secretly at the Algonquin when in New York visiting his publishers. No one would care about him there or, outside of college campuses, anywhere else but, still, the hotel likes to note this.
When William Faulkner had to leave his bucolic Oxford, Mississippi to visit the folks at Random House Publishing, he would take a room three or four times a year. He would even compose his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in one of those rooms. Thankfully for the other guests, not on a piano.
Like the Rose Room restaurant, the Oak Room bar is now closed [it was where Harry Connick, Jr. and Michael Feinstein became famous] as is the small, rather pleasant commuter bar that had been just off the lobby. However, the Blue Bar remains open and they still make a proper Manhattan, in addition to a martini that boasts a chunk of diamond floating in the mixture. The latter costs $10,000, for those interested; the Manhattan was twelve bucks the last time I was there.
I first stayed at the Algonquin when on a buying junket for the retail corporation in 1981. We were supposed to stay at the shabby place next to the equally shabby Penn Station, but I was willing to pay extra just to be reminded that I was once an English major. It was a great stay with a great meal in the Rose Room. When I later moved to New York, I would take dates to the Rose Room, too, as a bit of elegance was always appreciated by the young women whom I courted.
For many years, I belonged to the Princeton Club, just a block away, but would still stop by the Algonquin for a coffee in the paneled lobby or a drink in the bar. Since the Princeton Club has been mismanaged to the point of indifference, replacing its dark, slouchy bar with some well-lit place with uncomfortable seating, and eliminating its proper library, not to mention offering guest rooms to members at the same price that the Algonquin offers to its clientele, it was easy to surrender membership and return to the hotel, especially as it has so many familiar personal memories attached to it.
It is not any more or less expensive than any other hotel in New York, but carries something that is perpetually under threat in our contemporary age: grace and calm charm. That alone is worth the price.
