Niamh Martin

New York hotels with a literary twist

Five places to stay with their own stories

  • From Spectator Life
The balcony of the Presidential Suite at the Hotel Elysée [Hotel Elysée]

‘You really ought to read more books – you know, those things that look like blocks but come apart on one side.’ Perhaps F. Scott Fitzgerald was aiming for a motivational tone – literature was his livelihood, after all. He was also a seminal figure in the writers’ movement that began in 1920s New York and, over the following decades, took root in hotels across the city. Hot on the heels of Spectator Life‘s guide to London’s literary hotels, here are five New York hotels with their own tales to tell.

The Algonquin Hotel

[iStock]

The Algonquin’s association with the infamous Round Table of the 1920s has provided it with more connections to literature and the arts than perhaps any other hotel in New York. Outside the hotel, a plaque reads: ‘Here, such acid-tongued wits as Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley and Alexander Woollcott traded barbs and bon mots daily over lunch.’

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