My favorite hangout turns 100 today. Love the cozy, dark lobby, so nice for a cup of tea and a midday decompression; great place to meet friends for lunch hour or after-dinner drinks. From a news story:
“The famed Algonquin Hotel threw itself a 100th birthday party Friday, recalling the glory days when literary legends gathered in its oak-paneled lobby to turn phrases and tip back drinks. In the room where Dorothy Parker and her sharp-tongued writer friends held court for years, the hotel held a luncheon to kick off months of celebration events to mark the centennial. The hotel has taken pains to preserve an opulent look that recalls its opening in 1902. But its true fame takes root in the 1920s, when a collection of writers gathered there for daily lunches and drinks and came to be known as the Round Table. Parker, Edna Ferber, Robert Benchley and Franklin P. Adams were regulars. The Algonquin still rents its 174 rooms and suites. Its lobby is patrolled by Matilda, a Burmese cat that hotel staff likes to say is ‘spiritually descended’ from Hamlet, a stray cat taken in by the hotel in the 1930s.
A multimillion-dollar renovation, completed four years ago, restored the hotel’s marble stairs, antique furniture and intricate ironwork.”