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Located in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, the Algonquin Hotel is a true landmark, with a tradition of elegance that began over a century ago. Superb accommodations and a gracious atmosphere make the Algonquin an oasis of polished sophistication amid the hustle and bustle of the city.
The Algonquin Hotel opened its doors in 1902, in one of New York's most fashionable areas. Nearby were the two most celebrated restaurants of the time - Sherry's and Delmonico's - and five of the city's most prestigious clubs. Soon the Hippodrome, home to the Ziegfeld Follies, opened across the street, followed by a group of theatres.
Legendary Algonquin manager (1907) and owner (1927) Frank Case enjoyed the company of actors and writers, and he was instrumental in positioning the hotel at the center of New York’s literary and theatrical life.
The hotel is best known, perhaps, for the members of the Round Table, a group of luminaries who had in common both the ability to fire blazing witticisms and to withstand being on the receiving end of them. The tone of the Algonquin Round Table set the standard for literary style and wit of the 1920s.
After World War I, Vanity Fair writers and Algonquin regulars Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley and Robert E. Sherwood began lunching at the Algonquin. In 1919 they gathered in the Rose Room with some literary friends to welcome back ascerbic critic Alexander Woollcott from his service as a war correspondent. The lunch was intended as a put-down of Woollcott’s pretensions (he had the annoying habit of beginning stories with, “From my seat in the theatre of war…”), but it proved so enjoyable that someone suggested it become a daily event. This led to the daily exchange of ideas, opinions and often-savage wit that has enriched the world’s literary life and its anecdote collections as well. George S. Kaufman, Heywood Broun and Edna Ferber were also in this august assembly, which strongly influenced writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.
Though society columns referred to them as the Algonquin Round Table, they called themselves the Vicious Circle. “By force of character,” observed drama critic Brooks Atkinson, “they changed the nature of American comedy and established the tastes of a new period in the arts and theatre.”
Contrary to myth, Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley and their fellow wits never drank at the Round Table because of Prohibition.
William Faulkner wrote his 1950 Nobel Prize speech in this Algonquin Suite. Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe wrote My Fair Lady in Lerner’s suite.
Some of the most favorite visitors included Noel Coward, Laurence Olivier, Jeremy Irons, Graham Greene, Tom Stoppard, Charles Laughton, Diana Rigg , Tallulah Bankhead, Angela Lansbury, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Simone de Beauvoi, Eudora Welty, Helen Hayes, H.L. Mencken, John Barrymore, Booth Tarkington, Orson Welles, Gertrude Stein, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Anthony Hopkins.
Legendary Algonquin manager (1907) and owner (1927) Frank Case enjoyed the company of actors and writers, and he was instrumental in positioning the hotel at the center of New York’s literary and theatrical life.
The hotel is best known, perhaps, for the members of the Round Table, a group of luminaries who had in common both the ability to fire blazing witticisms and to withstand being on the receiving end of them. The tone of the Algonquin Round Table set the standard for literary style and wit of the 1920s.
After World War I, Vanity Fair writers and Algonquin regulars Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley and Robert E. Sherwood began lunching at the Algonquin. In 1919 they gathered in the Rose Room with some literary friends to welcome back ascerbic critic Alexander Woollcott from his service as a war correspondent. The lunch was intended as a put-down of Woollcott’s pretensions (he had the annoying habit of beginning stories with, “From my seat in the theatre of war…”), but it proved so enjoyable that someone suggested it become a daily event. This led to the daily exchange of ideas, opinions and often-savage wit that has enriched the world’s literary life and its anecdote collections as well. George S. Kaufman, Heywood Broun and Edna Ferber were also in this august assembly, which strongly influenced writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.
Though society columns referred to them as the Algonquin Round Table, they called themselves the Vicious Circle. “By force of character,” observed drama critic Brooks Atkinson, “they changed the nature of American comedy and established the tastes of a new period in the arts and theatre.”
Contrary to myth, Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley and their fellow wits never drank at the Round Table because of Prohibition.
William Faulkner wrote his 1950 Nobel Prize speech in this Algonquin Suite. Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe wrote My Fair Lady in Lerner’s suite.
Some of the most favorite visitors included Noel Coward, Laurence Olivier, Jeremy Irons, Graham Greene, Tom Stoppard, Charles Laughton, Diana Rigg , Tallulah Bankhead, Angela Lansbury, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Simone de Beauvoi, Eudora Welty, Helen Hayes, H.L. Mencken, John Barrymore, Booth Tarkington, Orson Welles, Gertrude Stein, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Anthony Hopkins.
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