The Algonquin Hotel

The Algonquin Hotel stands on West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan, completed in 1902 to a design by the architect Goldwin Starrett, and it became internationally known during the 1920s as the meeting place of the Algonquin Round Table, an informal daily gathering of writers, critics and editors, including Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley and Alexander Woollcott, whose conversation and published wit helped shape the era's New York literary culture. The hotel's modest, red-brick Georgian Revival exterior gives little indication of its cultural significance, and much of its lasting identity rests on its intimate wood-paneled lobby and lounge rather than any singular architectural feature. Since the 1930s the hotel has also maintained a long-running tradition of keeping a resident cat, a practice that has become one of its most publicized traditions independent of its literary history. The Algonquin was designated a National Historic Literary Landmark by the Friends of Libraries USA in 1996, formally recognizing the Round Table's association with the building.