Sid and the Vicious Circle

When I think of New York, I first think "Sesame Street," Woody Allen, old black and white movies about Broadway, and Edith Wharton, not necessarily in that order. But I mostly think about writers.

New York City is really a writer's city, in much the way that Paris is a painter's city, and when we made honeymoon plans, there were two places I especially wanted to see: the Hotel Chelsea and the Algonquin Hotel.

The Hotel Chelsea doesn't exactly celebrate the seedier aspects of its history, but this painting of Sid Vicious hangs in the lobby, and they will helpfully tell you he killed Nancy Spungen in Room 100.

The Chelsea, 222 W. 23rd St, was built in 1884 as co-op apartments, but became a hotel in 1905. It now has 125 hotel rooms, and 101 residential units. Coincidentally, the Associated Press reported only this morning that the landmark is up for sale. The Chelsea is almost as famous for who died there, as it is for its former residents. Dylan Thomas collapsed from alcohol poisoning there in 1953, and died. And in 1978, Sex Pistols guitarist Sid Vicious brutally murdered his girlfriend Nancy Spungen in Room 100.

I'm always up for a good murder scene, but the real draw for me was the authors, poets and playwrights who have lived here over the years. One of my favorite authors, Thomas Wolfe, lived here in the last years of his life. That's the author of "Look Homeward Angel," not Tom Wolfe, he of the ice cream suits who always matches his shirts to his socks, although I love him too. A bronze plaque outside commemorates Wolfe and others such as Brendan Behan, Leonard Cohen, New York School poet James Schuyler, and most impressive to my husband, Arthur C. Clarke wrote "2001: A Space Oddysey" while living there.

The Chelsea lobby is full of art, like these paper mache figures. and the mixed media below.


The lobby is homey, bohemian, and filled with art in a variety of mediums. The desk clerk was helpful in a laconic way, and it seemed like a place I would love to stay if it hadn't been for the loud "artist" in the lobby with a painted face, haranguing an East Indian couple in such a pretentious way I wanted to tell him to put a sock in it.

We looked around, then set off for the Algonquin Hotel, home to the Algonquin Round Table, a group of writers, publishers, actors and wits who met there every day for lunch. I am always fascinated by groups of artistic people who crop up, find one another and gather for inspiration and companionship.

I read Susan Cheever's "American Bloomsbury" and was shocked to find that Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson lived within walking distance of each other in Concord, Mass. Thoreau and Emerson I knew about, since Emerson's wife was doing Thoreau's laundry while he was living on Walden Pond. (And cooking him dinner, by the way. Self-sufficency, my eye!)

The Algonquin group weren't on the same level as those literary heavyweights, but they were witty, and fed off of one another's energy. Possible best remembered of the "Vicious Circle" is author and poet Dorothy Parker, who coined such bon mots as "Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses." (Oh, yeah, Dottie? I beg to differ.)

My daughter Allison drinking a $20 martini in the lobby of the fabled Algonquin Hotel.

The Rose Room, where the group had their table, no longer exists thanks to a remodel of the hotel's lobby in 1998. The owners had a replica of the table made, and it sits in a place of honor under a portrait of the group.

The lobby is beautiful, and made the perfect place for a cocktail on a cloudy day. Even if we had wanted to get drunk, we couldn't afford it. Bombay Sapphire martinis were a cool $20, and two martinis, a beer and a cheese plate set us back $86. You won't be surprised to learn we ate hotdogs from a street vendor for lunch.

A replica of the storied Algonquin Round Table sits under a portrait of the members of the luncheon group.



"A Vicious Circle" by Natalie Ascencios, shows members of the Round Table, such as Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, George S. Kaufman, Robert E. Sherwood, and Alexander Woollcott.

On our way to Rockefeller Center to go ice skating, we passed Charles Scribner's Sons, a legendary publishing house, who published Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton, and Kurt Vonnegut, among others. The bottom floor is now a Sephora, but the side of the building still sports their sign.

Charles Scribner's Sons on Fifth Ave., publisher of such literary luminaries as Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton and Kurt Vonnegut.

Next week: Ice skating is not as easy as it looks....