Lobbying for a stay at New York's Algonquin

By Michael Phillips | Tribune reporter

April 27, 2008

As I write this mash note to the Algonquin, the clubby enclave with the most storied literary history of any Manhattan hotel, the resident cat, Matilda, is lounging on one of the bell carts near the front desk. I'm sitting a few yards away, with my laptop and my big pot of coffee, watching the cat, and watching the incoming and outgoing hotel guests watch the cat.

I'm at a table by the window overlooking West 44th Street. It's dark in here, but nice. Rainy day outside, cozy inside. Eighteen other little table-and-chair-and-couch arrangements are scattered around the dimly lit meeting ground adjoining the Blue Bar, which adjoins the Oak Room, where the art of cabaret lives, and lives well.

H.L. Mencken called the Algonquin "the most comfortable hotel in America." I don't know if that's true, but if there's a more pleasing lobby in America, tell me about it.

The hotel's famous for its Algonquin Round Table crowd, also known as "the Vicious Circle" of columnists, playwrights, novelists and professional wags. These wags included Dorothy Parker, Harpo Marx, George S. Kaufman, Robert Benchley and Alexander Woollcott. Their endlessly lionized "10-year lunch" spanned, roughly, the years 1919 to 1929. This is where the idea for The New Yorker magazine was born. The Algonquin is where Orson Welles honeymooned, at the start of one of his marriages. William Faulkner drafted his Nobel acceptance speech in a room here. In composer Frederick Loewe's suite, Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner banged out songs for "Brigadoon" and, later, "My Fair Lady."

CHECKING IN/ATTITUDE: I blew into New York on a recent weekend to see an old friend in a new play. My stay at the 1902 landmark hotel began around 4:30 p.m. on a Friday. Check-in, a breeze; the front staffers were bright and pleasant and "sir" this and "sir" that, to a fault. I've stayed at the Algonquin before and found the employees a little chilly. Not this time.

ROOMS: It's a small hotel, 174 rooms, and at present the Algonquin is nearing the end of a substantial renovation (you could smell the paint wafting through the hallways). Small hotel equals small rooms, at least the ones I've stayed in. This time I booked a $294 rate through the hotel's Web site.

But I liked my little room (901). The hotel's on a surprisingly quiet block by midtown Manhattan standards, and while I didn't have a view, I had quiet. My "classic" room, as the Web site designated it, had a double bed (a queen would've made for a verrrrrry tight fit) with an extremely pillowy mattress and bedding combination. Big-screen flattie on the wall. CD player/clock radio by the bed. Ironing board and iron in the closet. The hotel charges $12.95 for in-room, in-wall DSL connection, but free Wi-Fi is available both in the rooms and in that lobby I'm nertz about.

No mini-bar in the room, but be sure to check out the contents of the desk drawers: You can get drunk on the literature instead—the latest copies of The New Yorker (a given) and Time Out New York, as well as the Atlantic Monthly. Hours of good reading. Plus, the guest services directory makes for an entertaining hour, which is more than I can say about nearly any guest services directory I can remember. This one's loaded with anecdotes about Round Table regulars, including Benchley's telegram back home upon arriving in Venice ("STREETS FLOODED. PLEASE ADVISE"). Or this one, from scribe Marc Connelly: Someone came up to Connelly in the Algonquin lobby one evening and rubbed his bald head and said it felt "just like my wife's behind." Whereupon Connelly stroked his head himself and responded, "So it does!"

BATHROOM: Spacious in proportion to the room, with a reassuringly high tub wall separating tub/shower from the rest of the bathroom. The vanity light fixtures are just classy enough to take the glare off the hotel's commitment to squiggly energy-saving light bulbs.

KID FRIENDLY: Well, not kid-unfriendly, certainly. There is that cat. If your kid has dreams of growing up to be Mr. Banks in "Mary Poppins," the Edwardian civility and serenity of the joint will appeal. Otherwise, well, you're in New York to see New York, and the Algonquin's a five-minute walk to most of the Broadway theaters, and convenient to most major subway lines. By those standards, it's kid-friendly.

ROOM SERVICE: The room's just wee enough to discourage it. This is why I'm taking notes in the lobby—because it's a swell place to order an overpriced but mellow-tasting $9 pot of "Scandinavian" coffee. (What does that mean? That it comes with excellent health insurance?) But if room service you must, it's available 7-11 a.m. for breakfast, and noon-10:30 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and noon-11:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday for lunch and dinner.

PERKS & PEEVES: Perks include the flattie on the wall, the magazines in the desk (though really they should spread them out on top of it) and the ghosts of wags past wisecracking all over the place. Also in the lobby various newspapers are available for perusal, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. At the Blue Bar off the lobby, last call's 1:15 a.m. Be sure to check the Oak Room schedule: By a few weeks, I missed the first-rate jazz chanteuse Tierney Sutton, whom I caught at the Oak Room a couple of years ago.

Peeves? Well, I'd rather the Algonquin play host to a house dog than a house cat. But there are two kinds of people in the world: Those who prefer dogs, and those who hold the incorrect preference regarding cats.

BOTTOM LINE: At a AAA-discounted $294 rate, my one night, with tax, came to $336.86, not counting coffee in the morning and a drink in the evening. Scan the travel Web sites such as hoteldiscounts.com, orbitz .com, expedia.com and the hotel's own site (www.algon quinhotel.com) for the best offers. The hotel is handicap accessible.

And I don't know if I mentioned it, but I really love that lobby.