Algonquin Hotel

One of my favourite cities, unoriginal perhaps, is New York. The last time I went was October 2011 and, once again, fell in love with, this time, a very snowy Manhattan. Like breakfasts of 5-stack pancakes, golden syrup and fresh strawberries, shopping, strolls in Central Park... I couldn't visit NYC without popping into Fifth Avenue Barnes & Noble. I love Waterstones, I do, but B&N is just something else…

What I've never done before, however, is visit the famous Algonquin Hotel on W. 44th Street. A friend of my Dad's came to treat us to lunch at the Algonquin's Round Table and my inner-book-geek came streaming out... We sat at the round table itself, I'm told, and ate the most delicious burger and garlic fries...

Six years ago now, the hotel officially became a literary landmark. Tucked in-between the Theatre District and the publishing world, the Round Table entertained many literary greats. William Faulkner is thought to have written his Nobel Prize acceptance speech there, Harold Ross came up with The New Yorker and, with Vanity Fair offices just 4 doors down, plenty of the magazine's elite journalists used to dine at the Round Table for a truly literary lunch. To this day all guests receive free copies of The New Yorker. Many women, in particular, enjoyed The Algonquin: Gertrude Stein, Dorothy Parker and Simone de Beauvoir were all seen regularly.
The Round Table posse at The Algonquin were made up largely of critics and they would sit and discuss the day-to-day goings on with each other. These characters and discussions inspired Franklin Adams’ column in the Tribune at the time. This column would go on to inspire the writings of the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway - quite the legacy, I think you'd agree.
As you can see from my photo, the hotel itself was amazing as it felt I was walking around in the 1930s or a scene in Woody Allen’s, Midnight in Paris, and about to bump into the Fitzgeralds or Edith Wharton!