The Smithsonian should put a bid on Chuck Shah. He stands in his black cutaway major-domo jacket -- neat, observant and museum-ready: a real-thing New York waiter in a timeless New York lobby. It could be a diorama of Old Manhattan, except Shah -- no dummy -- is serving real food and the air is redolent of onion soup.
"Right here where you're sitting was the New Yorker table," Shah says, handing over a Caesar salad. "The editor, Mr. William Shawn, he ate lunch here every day, working and meeting people."
Can we talk: The Algonquin's conversational lobby. New owners promise to gently update the venerable hotel.
(Algonquin Hotel)
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And before Shawn, it was New Yorker founder Harold Ross who for decades used this table as a second office. "They were all very nice," says Shah. "Except after Tina Brown took over. I didn't like her as much."
He gestures to the other corner of the dining room, under square columns and arrow-point Arts and Crafts lamps hanging over the tables. "Over there was the mayor's table. I served Giuliani breakfast a million times. Dinkins too. And Bloomberg, he's been in here already."
Administrations change. Editors come and go. Trends flare up and celebrities flame out. But the Algonquin Hotel maintains its storied calm as the richly upholstered eye of the New York hurricane. It's an officially certified Literary Landmark and it turns 100 years old on Friday.
This rectangular lobby and its adjacent dining room -- often updated but forever unchanged -- is no bigger than a middle school library. But it contains a warehouse of literary and theatrical history: It was the unofficial nursery of the New Yorker (It was during a poker game here that Harold Ross persuaded yeast heir Raoul Fleischmann to bankroll the magazine.); Lerner and Loewe wrote "My Fair Lady" in one suite, William Faulkner wrote his Nobel speech in another; British actors considered it the westernmost outpost of London's West End. And Dorothy Parker presided over a Round Table of waggish critics and scribes who made wit the zeitgeist of the 1920s.
"The most talented people in the country traveled to New York to be writers, and they needed a place to feel safe," says David Colby, whose grandfather owned the hotel for 40 years. "That's what they found at the Algonquin, a home."
At the century mark, this is still a terrific place to base a New York visit -- a block from the theater district, an easy schlep from Grand Central, right in the heart of the city. (According to loyalists, it is the heart of the city.) The amenities just touch luxury level -- boutique soaps and high-count sheets -- and you'll find the latest New Yorker, of course, but also the Atlantic, in every room.
Yes, the standard rooms are small, the corridors are narrow and the elevator dawdles. But those are modern-minded quibbles in a hotel that boasts one of the city's top cabarets (the Oak Room), a well-padded neighborhood tavern (the Blue Bar) and a lobby that once served as the engine room of American literature.
It's a temple to talk, this lobby. For a century, the shouts and murmurs of five generations of Manhattanites have floated up and curled around the white dentil moldings, steeping the heavy oak paneling and plush cushions in a brume of fluency. On a recent rainy Wednesday, wet New Yorkers ducked through the front doors with a quick step and a sigh of relief. Inside it is welcoming and warm and the cocktail hum is building. Some are here for happy hour. Others are here early for the night's show, Paula West, a swinging alto from San Francisco. After a rave review, she's been filling the Oak Room, that holdover enclave of cafe society. It's an intimate space of small tables and candle lamps that used to be the hotel's carriage house. (Taking in a show in the long, narrow space is a bit like sitting in a dining car.)
"It's great here," says West, signing CDs in the lobby. "I'm really into the lyrics of the songs, telling the stories, and that's traditionally what this place is all about."
The rain falls and the lobby fills. "I've got to get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini," Round Tabler Robert Benchley once said (perhaps more than once).
It's a soft room to have inspired such sharp wits. Settees and armchairs face off around coffee tables, each with a push-button bell to summon a waiter. In a dozen conversation pits surrounding the old tall clock, the chairs and lamps manage to look as mismatched (they are not) and cozy (they are) as a great-aunt's parlor. At 4 in the afternoon, refugees from shopping are having a nosh and a natter in one corner, while business types exchange glossy folders under warm table lamps in another.
"People hide in here," says Christina Zeniou, the Algonquin's sales director, observing the crowd. "People still use it as an office. We love that."
For David Colby, 40, it was more than an office, it was his home on and off for more than two decades. His grandfather -- an oil millionaire from Charleston, S.C., named Ben Bodne -- bought the place for his wife after legendary hotelier Frank Case died in 1946. Bodne and his wife and children ran the Algonquin personally until selling it in 1987, eventually winning over New Yorkers who were dubious that outsiders would properly preserve the hotel's lettered character. They did, providing their own much-noted gifts of gab and drama.
Colby tested the limits of room service and monitored the ever-changing pageant. He remembers his grandmother cooking pre-dawn eggs so Laurence Olivier could make an early shoot for "Marathon Man." He remembers Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and New Yorker staff writer Brendan Gill at a lobby table, plotting to save Grand Central Station from the wrecking ball. He remembers, later, the incongruous likes of Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie and A Flock of Seagulls -- remember them? with the hair? -- in the Algonquin lobby.
"This place was known as a theatrical hotel, but the best show was right here," Colby says.
More recently, though, Colby has watched sadly as a series of owners have failed to keep the Algonquin properly poised at the epicenter of New York lit life. "It's been sort of off the radar," he says. "People aren't talking about it."
But a new new owner is in town, a Colorado-based company with a taste for unique properties. And it's brought in Destination Resorts to manage the hotel (the company that runs the revered Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, among others). And they pledge to tug the Algonquin into the modern age without scratching its venerable sheen. (It's just installed a T-1 line for Internet access, for example, and promises updated reservation systems and refurnished rooms. Things like that.)
"If you want trendy boutique, you won't find that here," says Zeniou, just as a heavily made-up woman glides through the lobby in a black turban, black cloak and a whirlwind of scarves. "This is the Algonquin, and they're committed to keeping it the Algonquin."
Colby, for one, says he's hopeful the hotel will improve with some careful investment. And he's encouraged that the new owners have consulted him and other devotees as they make their plans.
"I still think of it as home," he says. "It deserves a great birthday."
Escape Keys
GETTING THERE: The Algonquin is at 59 W. 44th St. If you take Amtrak to Penn Station (starting at $72 each way for unreserved coach, 800-872-7245, www.amtrak.com), take the D or F train to 42nd Street. Or grab a taxi for about $4 (non rush-hour). Detais: 212-840-6800, www.algonquinhotel.com).
THE ALGONQUIN: Standard rooms at the 174-room hotel range from $199 to $289 a night; suites (including the Dorothy Parker and James Thurber suites) start at $349. The hotel plans a range of events over the next several months to celebrate its 100th anniversary, including weekly readings with First Book, a children's literacy organization, special packages and a gala in the spring. Eating at the Algonquin includes cocktails and light fare in the lobby, and a full menu in the former Rose Room (now the Round Table Room). The Oak Room cabaret and supper club is open Tuesday through Saturday nights, with a $50 cover and two-drink minimum.
INFO: NYC & Company, 800-NYC- VISIT, www.nycvisit.com.
