Algonquin Round Table Events,News Algonquin Round Table Conversation, January 31 at New York Public Library

Algonquin Round Table Conversation, January 31 at New York Public Library

NYPL

The New York Public Library has launched the Community Conversations initiative. On Wednesday, January 31, 6:30 p.m., the Mid-Manhattan branch will host a lecture and conversation “Literary Life in New York: Then and Now” to focus on the Algonquin Round Table history. It will feature Kevin C. Fitzpatrick, author of The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide.

The event is free and open to the public. It will be held in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, 42nd and Fifth Avenue (476 Fifth Avenue). Enter on the 42nd Street side entrance. Currently the Mid-Manhattan branch is closed for renovations and it is temporarily located in the flagship building of the NYPL.

About the evening: Mid-Manhattan Library is organizing a series of lectures and conversations around the life of the mind for the average New Yorker. Following each public lecture, librarians will facilitate a dialogue with the goal of connecting neighbors and building new relationships through meaningful dialogue about local issues.

The second talk in the series, “Literary Life in New York: Then and Now,” with Kevin Fitzpatrick, focuses on the Algonquin Round Table. In 1919—a century ago next year—The Algonquin Round Table first started having their famous luncheons at the Hotel Algonquin. Since that time a direct line can be drawn through New York from those 30 members of the Vicious Circle. Their impact on books, magazines, theater, film, and music is still around us today. In this talk, Kevin will give an overview of the history of the Algonquin Round Table, and lead us from the New York era of the Jazz Age and speakeasies to the modern era of streaming music and Twitter.

Following the talk, join us for a community conversation on creative life in New York. How has literary life changed in the digital age? Share your insights and join the dialogue. The brand new Community Conversations initiative at The New York Public Library introduces a space for discussion on local topics that matter most to you. Local librarians at select branches will co-facilitate these dialogues with community organizations, inviting anyone and everyone to the table to share and listen. Let’s create a truly democratic space where we can connect together through meaningful dialogue.

Space is limited, reserve free tickets here.

Related Post

FPA

Radio Pioneers of the Algonquin Round TableRadio Pioneers of the Algonquin Round Table

CBS

Deems Taylor, composer Sigmund Romberg, and Alexander Woollcott in the studio, circa 1935.

When I was compiling the material for my book, The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide, I was struck by the group’s versatility. I’d originally believed the group, which met from 1919 to about 1927, was the realm of newspaper and magazine writers. However, by researching the biographies of all thirty members, it became clear the group had their fingers in every form of mass entertainment and media.

It turns out that there were members with careers that stretched from silent pictures to live television, such as actresses Margalo Gillmore and Peggy Wood. Robert Benchley made the first all-talking short, The Treasurer’s Report, released in March 1928 by Fox. Marc Connelly and Dorothy Parker both wrote captions and scenarios for the silents, then later jumped into writing plays and talkies.

But if there is one format that most of the members drew paychecks from after the Round Table ended, that’s radio. Many members of the group appeared as guests, commentators, writers, or actors. Benchley and Parker had their short stories adapted for dramatizations. Harpo Marx whistled his answers on-air. Others made the transition from newspapers to microphones, trading on their popularity as writers.

The book has more than 100 locations around the New York area tied to the lives of the “Vicious Circle” that met at the Algonquin Hotel on West Forty-fourth Street. Here are three spots from their radio days, all within walking distance of the Round Table.

FPA

New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Franklin P. Adams on Information Please.


NBC, 30 Rockefeller Plaza

Franklin P. Adams was a veteran newspaper columnist with 35 years’ experience when his services were no longer needed. Radio saved him, and a quiz show was the last hurrah of his brilliant career. In 1937, the Herald Tribune didn’t renew his contract. With an encyclopedic knowledge of literature and trivia and a family of five to support during the height of the Great Depression, the offer to be a regular panelist on a radio quiz show came as a blessing.

The format of Information Please was simple but brilliant. Listeners mailed in questions. If the question stumped a panel of experts, the listener won a small cash prize. The show was unrehearsed and conducted before a live studio audience. The 30-minute program moved like lightning, and experts and guests had to answer quickly. On May 17, 1938, Information Please debuted on the NBC Blue Network (later ABC). Clifton Fadiman, a literary critic who wrote for The New Yorker, was master of ceremonies. The show was an overnight success, and more than 25,000 questions poured into the studios.

One question put to F.P.A. in 1938 was to finish the Joe Miller gag, “Who was that lady I saw you with last night?” To which he replied, “There are two answers: That was no lady, that was my wife. And the other is that was no lady that was your wife.” The show continued for ten years, mostly on NBC. Over time, just about every Round Table member appeared as a guest.

NBC has always been associated with Rockefeller Center. John D. Rockefeller Jr., son of the founder of Standard Oil, owned the land and helped create the landmark. The area bounded by Fifth and Sixth avenues from 48th to 51st streets contained numerous speakeasies before demolition in 1930. NBC has called 30 Rockefeller Plaza home since the building was completed in 1933, spanning corporate ownership from General Electric to Comcast. More than a dozen buildings form the complex today, with “30 Rock” as centerpiece. Radio studios were the original tenants (hence Radio City) and now television studios. The Art Deco buildings are landmarks inside and out.

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall.


CBS, Carnegie Hall, 881 Seventh Avenue

When radio networks became national broadcasters in the late 1920s, some of the live programming was classical music. Symphonies and orchestras dominated as networks tried to reach upper class listeners. William S. Paley signed the New York Philharmonic to CBS in a major coup and gave the network enormous prestige.

Beginning in 1936, Deems Taylor served as commentator during intermissions. Already a star composer and conductor, he had been a newspaper music critic but never a broadcaster. His role at CBS was an enormous success, and Taylor found himself giving weekly music lecturers to a huge audience during Sunday afternoon concerts in Carnegie Hall. He helped listeners understand what they were hearing and helped a generation appreciate classical music. Taylor also introduced listener questions, interviewed orchestra members during intermissions, and brought the whole experience of classical music into the nation’s living rooms. A broadcaster for more than ten years, Taylor became the country’s best-known authority on music.

The building was saved from a wrecking ball in 1960 and underwent multi-million dollar renovations in recent years. Today the Isaac Stern auditorium, the main performance hall, seats 2,800.

CBS, 485 Madison Avenue

Alexander Woollcott loved to pontificate. He was a ham, a showman, and a natural as a radio broadcaster. He also notoriously recycled magazine articles and sold them to two and even three publications. Getting a radio show allowed him to retell those same stories to another audience and saved his career. From 1930 to 1943, Woollcott worked on the top floor in Studio One of the CBS Building. He was “The Town Crier” on panel discussion radio program, with national sponsorships. It was an early form of talk radio, with notable guests brought in and Woollcott acting as a moderator.

On January 23, 1943, a few days after he turned 56, Woollcott suffered a stroke during a live panel discussion. He was carried out of the CBS studios in his chair and brought to Roosevelt Hospital, but it was too late. A week later, a memorial service was held at Columbia University’s McMillan Academy Theatre.

In 1930, the 24-story Columbia Broadcasting Building was completed for the two-year-old CBS radio network at 485 Madison Avenue to designs by J. E. R. Carpenter. This was CBS’s home until 1965, when the company moved to the 38-story CBS Building designed by Eero Saarinen on Sixth Avenue and 52nd Street, nicknamed “Black Rock.”

***

Originally written for Cladrite Radio.

Frank Sullivan Place

Frank Sullivan of Saratoga SpringsFrank Sullivan of Saratoga Springs

Frank Sullivan Home, Saratoga Springs

Frank Sullivan Home, Saratoga Springs


After the demise of the New York World in 1931, Algonquin Round Table member Frank Sullivan moved home to Saratoga Springs and became the ultimate freelancer. In a small clapboard house shared with his sister at 135 Lincoln Avenue, he turned out marvelous humor pieces for the rest of his career. “Once I visited New York for twenty years but I wouldn’t live there if you gave me Philadelphia,” he wrote. “A small town is the place to live. I live in a small town 180 miles from New York and while I would not say it has New York beat by a mile I would put the distance at six furlongs.”

Over the years, New Yorkers such as Harold Ross and Marc Connelly visited Sullivan, who took them to the racetrack, two blocks from his house, which treated him like royalty. He picked up the nickname “The Sage of Saratoga” and worked until his early eighties. He wrote for The New Yorker for fifty years as well as the Times sports section, the Saturday Evening Post, and Town & Country, his work collected in half a dozen books.

Sullivan suffered a series of falls in his home, and his health deteriorated. He died in Saratoga Hospital on February 19, 1976, at age 83. He is buried in the family plot St. Peter’s Cemetery in Saratoga Springs.

Frank Sullivan Place

Frank Sullivan Place

Today he is immortalized with a street sign nearby the racetrack, Frank Sullivan Place. His house was named a literary landmark, and is privately owned.

Adapted from The Algonquin Round Table New York, A Historical Guide (Globe Pequot Press) available here.

The Algonquin Hotel

Vicious Circle Virtual Tours Begin April 3Vicious Circle Virtual Tours Begin April 3

Algonquin Round Table by Natalie Ascencious

Algonquin Round Table by Natalie Ascencious

I’ve turned the Algonquin Round Table walking tour into a virtual tour. I supply the tour, you can watch with friends and family, and try out your best wisecracks on each other. Plus we can cover a lot more ground together. I’m offering them on Fridays for four weeks, at 2:00 p.m. ET (New York time), which is 11:00 a.m. (Los Angeles), 6:00 p.m. (London), 7:00 p.m. (Paris) but check your time zone for seasonal changes. The tour is 2:00 p.m. in New York City time. Tickets are $10 each and can be purchased in advance here.

The tour will be Friday, April 3, 10, 17 and 24.

The Algonquin Round Table comes alive in the only New York tour devoted to the famed literary group. It met from 1919-1929 and is America’s most well-known group of writers. We will trace the footsteps (from your house) of the legendary wits Franklin P. Adams, Robert Benchley, Heywood Broun, Marc Connelly, Edna Ferber, George S. Kaufman, Harpo Marx, Dorothy Parker, Harold Ross, Robert Sherwood, Alexander Woollcott, and the rest of the “Vicious Circle.” The tour explore the architectural and historical stories of the buildings and landmarks linked to them.

The tour “begins” and “ends” inside the world-famous Algonquin Hotel, a national literary landmark. This 1-hour tour will visit more than 30 places. Tour Highlights:

• See the Theatre District and the landmark Broadway playhouses;
• Visit the locations of the former speakeasies of Rockefeller Center;
• See where the Round Table lived in Hell’s Kitchen during Prohibition;
• Learn about their 1920s friends such as F. Scott Fitzgerald;
• See where The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue magazines began.

Not only will you get a taste of New York history, but it’s a great way to learn about the past and also see how little has changed over the decades.

The guide is Kevin C. Fitzpatrick. He is the author of The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide (Lyons Press), A Journey into Dorothy Parker’s New York (Roaring Forties Press), and Under the Table: A Dorothy Parker Cocktail Guide (Lyons Press), among others. He’s president of the Dorothy Parker Society.