Waiting On The Algonquin
[Photo By: KPA]
There are many lovely photos of the Algonquin Hotel in New York, including this one from the hotel's website, where there is action in the flutter of the flags.
But, how many can say they managed to get this staff carrying (where is he going?) a package (looks like delivery), just outside the hotel, with his reflection in the door of the hotel? And I do manage to get some motion in the flags too.
I went in to ask about the menu, and about the history of the Round Table, and where the group sat. The receptionist did show me the table, and told me that there was some kind of guided tour. I asked to see the menu.
Well, from the dinner menu in the restaurant, a shrimp cocktail costs $20, and "parmesan crusted chicken breast" is $36. But, a Pre-theater Dinner (three course) costs $35, which is reasonable enough.
Or one could have a drink and snacks at the Lounge, as the recpetionist suggested, where "home made Algonquin potato chips with old fashioned onion dip" is $9, and the Hemingway cocktail is $21. The bar has graciously written the drinks' ingredients on the menu, where the Hemingway includes: stolichnaya, fresh grapefruit and simple syrup, with a sugar rim on the glass. Matilda the Cat has her own cocktail as the Matilda, which at $21 contains: tangerine vodka, cointreau, fresh lemon & orange juices and korbel brut. Champagne and sweet liqueurs for this cat. The menu assures us that their "cocktails are made with depth, complexity and a dexterous hand."
But what is stolichnaya? I suppose it is Hemingway's communist connection which graced this vodka in the cocktail:
As in Europe, in the 1920s and 1930s numerous American intellectuals sympathized or joined the Communist Party in the United States as young activists. Columnist Max Lerner included the term in his 1936 article for The Nation called "Mr. Roosevelt and His Fellow Travelers." Future HUAC chief investigator J. B. Matthews would use the term in the title of his last book, Odyssey of a Fellow Traveler (1938). Other famous writers who traveled included Ernest Hemingway, and Theodore Dreiser. [Source]I would have thought the acerbic Dorothy Parker would have been a better candidate after whom to name a cocktail.
I managed to see the mural of the Round Table group on the far wall of the Algonquin Restaurant, which would have been the room where they met.
A Vicious Circle
2002
Illustration by Natalie Ascencios
[Source: NPR]
Identifying members of the Round Table
[Source]
1. Dorothy Parker writer and literary and drama criticAnd next time I might be able to meet the Hotel's current, VIP: Matilda the cat.
2. Robert Benchley humorist and writer, managing editor at Vanity Fair and drama critic for Life and The New Yorker.
3. Matildais the Algonquin’s steadfast cat
4. Franklin Pierce Adams, best known for his column, “Conning Tower,” which appeared in three New York newspapers, The World, The Herald Tribune and the New York Post.
5. Robert Sherwood, playwright, drama editor of Vanity Fair, and wrote movie reviews for Life.
6. Harpo Marx, part of the Marx Brothers team
7. Alexander Woollcott, essayist and literary and drama critic, wrote for the New York Times, McCalls, The Saturday Evening Post, and Vanity Fair, had a weekly radio show, “Town Crier" in New York City.
8. Harold Ross, created The New Yorker magazine in 1925, Round Tablers Benchley, Parker and Woollcott contributed regularly
9. George S. Kaufman, playwright who wrote several Broadway hits, and collaborated on many works with fellow Round Tabler Marc Connelly
10. Heywood Broun, drama critic and sports writer for the New York Herald Tribune, wrote the column “Seems to Me” for 20 years covering New York nightlife
11. Marc Connelly, playwright, journalist for The Morning Telegraph
12. Edna Ferber, novelist and playwright
I wrote on the Alonguin here, On Round Tables.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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