For the centennial of the first meeting of the Algonquin Round Table, author Kevin C. Fitzpatrick presented a brief talk at the Algonquin Hotel. He presented the women of the Vicious Circle–the ones not named Dorothy Parker and Edna Ferber. In this talk, learn about Jane Grant, who co-founded The New Yorker; Ruth Hale, who fought to preserve her maiden name after marriage; Neysa McMein, the popular magazine illustrator & artist; Beatrice Kaufman, the editor not ashamed of her husband’s cheating; Margaret Leech, the 2-time Pulitzer Prize winner; and the popular actresses Margalo Gillmore and Peggy Wood, both of whom were onstage for 50 years. Thank you Michele Gouveia for filming this.
I found Frank Case. I wasn’t even looking for him. I was in Oakland Cemetery in Sag Harbor, Long Island, for the first time. I was actually looking for a Doughboy for our WWI Homecoming 21 project. As I was walking along the line of graves, since I didn’t know the location, I was peering at each one as quickly as possible. At the corner of the cemetery, in the corner of my eye, was a lone mausoleum. There are not that many in Oakland, just a few, it is not Woodlawn. As I stepped closer I saw the name across the top: CASE.
I was so happy to see this. Here was the general manager and owner of the Algonquin Hotel.
I had known for many years that Case (1871-1946) had a second home in Sag Harbor. He wrote about the home in his books, as did his only daughter, Margaret Case Harriman. While Case was the most famous hotelier in America at one time, I never knew where he ended up after his death in Manhattan. I assumed, wrongly, that he had gone home to Buffalo, New York, his hometown, and where his first wife, Carrie Case, was buried in 1908 after she tragically died in the Algonquin Hotel following the birth of their son, Carrol.
Frank and Bertha Case
One thing I learned a long time ago was to never trust the Internet. When I was researching my book The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide (2015) I was on a mission to track down the final resting places of the Vicious Circle. I did locate almost all 30 of them, but there are a few that still escape me (where are you Jane Grant and Robert E. Sherwood?). But I found many inaccuracies and misinformation. I made a pass at looking for Case; one lead was he was buried in Woodlawn, which was wrong. Many obituaries list New Yorker’s would hold their memorials in Woodlawn, then the remains sent away to other towns for burial. What I suspect is after his death, which was just four months after his second wife, Bertha, his family brought Bertha and Frank to the receiving vaults of Woodlawn. Here they remained temporarily while the mausoleum was constructed in Sag Harbor. I guess if I had 10 hours of free time I could check the records of both cemeteries, so perhaps if someone reading this wants to hire me for a paid assignment I will do that.
I like finding this mausoleum and closing the circle on Frank Case, who was by all accounts beloved by friends and staff (but was anti-union). He was also, like me, a member of The Lambs (the clubhouse was 2 minutes away west on Forty-fourth Street, and many of the actors who were members also lived at the hotel, such as John Drew and nephew John Barrymore).
One story told in the obituary of Bertha Case is about Sag Harbor. Bertha was a housekeeper at the Algonquin, which is how she met Frank. During WWI she volunteered and went to France with the YMCA as a volunteer, and was friends with superstar Elsie Janis (also an Algonquin regular). She and Frank were married for 30 years. What Bertha did was use the flower gardens at the Sag Harbor house to provide floral arrangements for the hotel–which she oversaw. Sag Harbor is also where the Case family entertained friends, such as Robert Benchley.
If you are in Sag Harbor and the South Fork of Long Island, pay a visit to Frank and Bertha Case.
Today is the anniversary of the opening of the Algonquin Hotel in 1902. Guests 117 years ago checked into the newest hotel on the block, located at No. 59-63 West Forty-fourth Street. When the Vicious Circle launched a century ago in 1919, it was but just 17 years old.
For the 2015 book The Algonquin Round Table New York: A Historical Guide (Globe Pequot), an entire chapter is devoted to the history of the hotel, its ownership era, and legends. A brief excerpt about the early days in 1902 begins:
“It isn’t the oldest hotel on the block. Both the Royalton at No. 44 and the Iroquois at No. 49 opened in 1900. In 1901-1902 the Thompson-Starrett Company built the Algonquin Hotel for the Puritan Realty Company. Puritan bought the plot, 72 x 100 feet, for $180,000 in November 1901. Construction of the one-hundred thirty-six foot tall building took just seven months. Puritan Realty put up the money, $500,000, and Thompson-Starrett acted as the architects and contractors. Twenty-eight year-old architect Goldwin Starrett worked on the hotel with his brothers Theodore, Ralph, and William.
It opened as the Hotel Algonquin, named for the Native Americans who were populous in New England during the pre-colonial era. “Algonquin” was chosen at the suggestion of first owner Ann Stetson Foster, because the Hotel Iroquois was already next-door. “It will make a veritable Indian settlement,” she said.
The first guests checked in on November 22, 1902. The twelve-story hotel had 192 rooms and suites. A room and bath en suite cost $2 a day, while a three-bedroom suite with private hall, sitting room, dining room, three bathrooms, and library would set you back $10. Following extensive renovations in 2012, the hotel now has 181 rooms; of those 25 are suites.”
The hotel is local and national literary landmark. We lift a glass to its continued history, success, and achievements. Here is a great podcast recorded inside the hotel by Greg and Tom, The Bowery Boys.
Listen to the voices of some of the most popular New York authors of the 1930s, all with a tie to The New Yorker. The all-star radio cast includes Heywood Broun, S.J. Perelman, Dawn Powell, and James Thurber. The occasion was the radio game show Author! Author! which was broadcast in October 1939. In it, audience members sent in scenarios for stories. A radio acting team performed the pieces. Then the authors filled in the blanks for the ending of the story.
Listen here (free streaming, 29 minutes)
The show was broadcast on the Mutual Network and carried on WOR.
S.J. Perelman is the master of ceremonies for the episode. He ribs Heywood Broun, who at the time was working tirelessly for the Newspaper Guild. Also on the broadcast is John Chapman, drama critic for the New York Daily News from the 1930s-1950s. He was nicknamed “Old Frost Face” because he was so hard to read.
Powell is introduced as the author of The Happy Island (1938), and as a playwright. “She’s wearing the famous Powell Rubies at her throat,” Perelman says. “Isn’t there some famous legend attached to those gems, Miss Powell?” he asks. “The only thing attached to them right now, Mr. Perelman,” comes her quick reply, “Is a child mortgage put there by the Greenwich Savings Bank.”
James Thurber was about to publish Fables For Our Times of his New Yorker pieces, and had just returned from Los Angeles. “Well I think that Hollywood is the only place in the world.” Thurber says drily. “The only place in the world where you can make $5,000 a week and then borrow money to get back to New York on. The only other memorable thing is fact the air out there comes in cans from the Mojave Desert. In two grades, breathed and unbreathed.”
The show wraps up as the authors act out a scene in a college dean’s office with Broun playing a football coach, Thurber as the dean, and Powell as the head of the girls’ athletic squad.
It is bittersweet to listen to the broadcast, as Broun died just two months later.
