Bill Maxwell at the St. Petersburg times has written a short commentary about the influence of the New York literary culture, which from 1919 to 1929 centered on informal gatherings at the Algonquin Hotel. Among other films, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle and The Moderns documented the flavor of the “Round Table” gatherings. Tarkington himself talked about how, when he was spending a great deal of his time working on Broadway productions, the gatherings fueled his over-indulgence in alcohol.
I traveled to New York last week and fulfilled another childhood dream: I stayed two nights at the Algonquin Hotel on West 44th Street. (And, yes, my checking account took a walloping.)
I do not recall exactly when I learned about Algonquin, but I do recall that some time during eighth grade, I had, on my own, discovered Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Edna Ferber, Booth Tarkington, H.L. Mencken, George S. Kaufman, Eudora Welty and William Faulkner, all of whom were regulars at the hotel.
And, of course, because I knew I would become a writer, I daydreamed of growing up and becoming a member of the famous Algonquin Round Table, a group of 20-odd journalists, fiction writers, playwrights and actors who got together each day for lunch at a special table in the hotel’s Rose Room.
Because Round Table members were New York luminaries, their witticisms and jokes were the staple of Franklin P. Adams’ column “The Conning Tower” in the New York Tribune the next day. The column was a must-read of the time…
