The Matilda

She’s the long-time mascot of the Algonquin Hotel, the coolest hotel cat in town. But when we stopped by the hotel yesterday, the only Matilda we saw was this drink – a golden $20 concoction of tangerine vodka, Cointreau, fresh lemon and orange juices and Korbel Brut named for the Algonquin’s fabled feline.

As reported in the New York Post, Matilda the cat was banished from the hotel’s clubby lobby lounge where she – and her nine predecessors – sauntered silkily among the sofas and club chairs and occasionally, when the mood struck, cozied up to guests. Though a cat has had the run of the Algonquin’s public spaces since 1932, when the staff took in Rusty, an orange tabby who drank milk from a champagne glass, the hotel reined in Matilda following a nudge from the city’s Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, which deems it unhealthy to allow animals in restaurants. (more…)

The Algonquin.

Historic hotels have their charms – the evocative architecture, the whiff of time travel, the (often) dazzling out-of-the-past guests lists. But there’s nothing charming about historic plumbing, which could be one reason the Algonquin, New York’s oldest operating hotel, is closing for four months of renovations beginning on January 1, 2012.

The news, reported in USA Today, seems a blend of surprise and what-took-them-so-long. The hotel, called the Puritan when it opened in 1902, oozes history in all the right places, namely the cozy/urbane wood-paneled lobby that still reels in an intriguing crowd, and the tile-floored Blue Bar, which opened the day Prohibition was repealed. (more…)

Algonquin memorabilia.

You’d never know it to look at them, but the Marriott Marquis, a brute, 1980s John Portman behemoth, and the Algonquin, a demure, history-drenched Edwardian, share something besides easy proximity to Times Square.

This week the Algonquin became a Marriott hotel — sort of.

The unlikely bond comes courtesy of the Algonquin’s new affiliation with Marriott’s Autograph Collection, a new subset of Marriott International comprised of one-of-a-kind hotels that prize personality. The Algonquin, in business since 1902, has personality in spades. Long-gone literary lights like Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley and Alexander Woolcott hung out here. Matilda, the hotel’s prize-winning cat, still does and is often underfoot in the lobby. (more…)