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The Dorothy Parker Society


"Must sees" for the slavish fanboy or fangirl.


A Tour of the Algonquin Hotel and the Round Table Room 
with commentary





We can only imagine what Mrs. Parker and her Algonquin round table friends would say about us. 


But our imaginations may not be up to the task.

The Round Table first met June 1919 for a luncheon to welcome home Aleck Woollcott, the drama critic for the New York Times, back from World War 1.

In 1987 the Algonquin was designated a New York City landmark, however it is not protected by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

A commemorative painting by Natalie Ascencious was unveiled in 2002 on the occasion of the Alqonquin Hotel's 100^th anniversary. 

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In 1996 Stuart Silverstein edited “Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker.” 

His comments:

"The enduring legacy of the group of newspaper writers, magazine editors, critics, actors and hangers-on is timeless."

"The first lunch at what later was called the Round Table probably occurred eighty years ago," Silverstein said in 1999. "Yet the term "The Algonquin Round Table" still holds substantial cultural resonance; for example, during the past television season at least three sitcoms employed it as an ironic punch line to skewer characters who spoke badly or stupidly. Is there any other person, or institution, or event from the interwar period that could possibly be used by a mass-market medium as an implicitly understood cultural reference? I cannot think of any -- not even Lindbergh (May 1927) not any more. Perhaps the Stock Market crash."

 

Those who lunch at the Algonquin round table

From the left: 
Mrs. Parker, drama critic Vanity Fair
Robert Benchley, managing editor of Vanity Fair

Franklin P. Adams, newspaperman
Robert E. Sherwood, playwright and screenwriter

Harpo Marx 
Harold Ross, editor of the New Yorker
Alex Woollcott, drama critic for the New York Times

Mark Connelly, newspaperman
Edna Ferber, novelist 
George S. Kaufman, Heywood Broun; newspapermen

This image of the Vicious Circle a painting by Natalie Ascencios from dorothyparker.com.

This information mostly taken from dorothyparker.com.