Algonquin Hotel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Entrance of the Algonquin Hotel

The Algonquin Hotel is the oldest operating hotel in New York City . It is located on 44th Street between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan . The exact address is 59 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036. Its close proximity to the Theater District and various newspaper offices made the hotel a preferred meeting place for artists and journalists after it opened in 1902.

history

The Algonquin Hotel at night

The building of the Algonquin Hotel was designed by the architect Goldwin Starrett, partner of the New York architecture firm Starrett & van Vleck . The Algonquin opened in 1902 and was initially designed as an apartment hotel . However, since there were too few tenants, it was converted into a normal hotel , the name of which goes back to the Algonquin tribes . Hotelier Frank Case rented the Algonquin in 1907. In 1927, he bought the property for $ 1 million and ran the hotel until his death in June 1946.

In October 1946, Ben Bodne bought the hotel for over a million US dollars and gave it to his wife. Bodne had the hotel extensively renovated. In 1987 he sold it to a group of Japanese investors. The property was acquired by real estate investment firm Miller Global Properties in 2002 and after a $ 3 million renovation in 2005, it was sold to HEI Hotels & Resorts , which was affiliated with Algonquin Marriott International, for allegedly $ 74 million . It is part of the Marriott's Autograph Collection brand .

In early 2012, the hotel was closed for five months due to renewed renovations. Since its reopening, it has 156 rooms and 25 suites with separate living areas. Despite the numerous renovations, the hotel's contemporary ambience has largely been retained. In 1987 the Algonquin Hotel was added to the list of National Historic Landmarks in New York City , and in 1996 it was named a National Literary Monument.

A domestic cat has always lived in the Algonquin since the 1930s. Until some time ago this was allowed to move around the hotel and receives regular fan mail.

The Oak Room is a well-known jazz and cabaret venue.

Algonquin Round Table

Algonquin Round Table Members : Art Samuels, Harpo Marx, Charlie MacArthur, Dorothy Parker, and Alexander Woollcott, ca.1919

From June 1919, the hotel became the meeting place for the Algonquin Round Table , a loose group of journalists, writers and actors who met there regularly. The meetings developed into an almost daily routine for about ten years. The meetings and its prominent participants are the reason that the hotel is now part of the cultural heritage of the city of New York. Robert Benchley , Heywood Broun , Marc Connelly , Jane Grant , Ruth Hale , George S. Kaufman , Neysa McMein , Dorothy Parker , Harold Ross , Robert E. Sherwood , Al Hirshfeld and Alexander Woollcott are among the core artists who returned there .

On the building there is now a plaque with a quote from theater critic Brooks Atkinson : “The personalities who came together here fundamentally changed the American understanding of what constitutes a comedy through their creations and broke a new stage in the arts in the Theater Bahn. "

Famous guests

In addition to the members of the Round Table, the Algonquin Hotel received, among others, Maya Angelou , Simone de Beauvoir , Graham Greene , Helen Hayes , Anthony Hopkins , Jeremy Irons , Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis , Angela Lansbury , Charles Laughton , Laurence Olivier , Diana Rigg , Gertrude Stein and Tom Stoppard as guests.

Orson Welles spent his honeymoon at the Algonquin.

In 1950, William Faulkner wrote the acceptance speech for the award of his Nobel Prize at the Algonquin Hotel. Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe wrote the musical My Fair Lady (1956) in the Algonquin.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Interesting Facts www.algonquinhotel.com, accessed October 12, 2014.
  2. ↑ Michaela Karl : Another Martini and I lie under the host , Chapter III. Hotel Algonquin and Vicious Circle, p. 53.
  3. ^ Frank Case: Tales of a Wayward Inn, New York 1938, p. 189.
  4. ^ Sale of a Wayward Inn TIME Magazine, October 21, 1946, accessed October 11, 2014.
  5. ↑ A Child of the Algonquin Looks for a New Generation of Wits The New York Times, accessed October 11, 2014.
  6. ↑ Accommodations ( Memento of December 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) www.algonquinhotel.com, accessed on December 1, 2014.
  7. ↑ City Makes It Official: Algonquin Is Landmark The New York Times, accessed December 1, 2014.
  8. ↑ SPON panorama of November 24, 2011
  9. ^ Annabella Fick: New York Hotel Experience. Transcript: Bielefeld, 2017. ISBN 978-3-8376-3781-6
  10. ↑ a b c The Algonquin Hotel, New York The Guardian, accessed October 13, 2014.

Coordinates: 40 ° 45 ′  N , 73 ° 59 ′  W