Algonquin Hotel
Breakfast: M-F 7am-10:30am; Sa-Su 7am-11am; Lunch: 12pm-3pm Everyday; Dinner: Su-Th 5pm-10:30pm; F-Sa 5pm-11:30pm
Sitting alongside many others, the Algonquin is also a designated New York City landmark on 44th with well-documented tales. The chicanery perhaps started in 1919 with the unofficial founding of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of writers, wits, and wags who gathered for lunch daily in the main dining room to exchange barbs and make merry. After ten years, the group died out, but then-owner Frank Case continued adding character to the premises by taking in a stray cat that made the hotel his home. Since then, there has always been a cat on the premises (the males are called Hamlet, the females Matilda), and the hotel goes so far as to answer correspondence for the furballs. Almost one hundred years later, the Algonquin continues to be a gathering place for writers, actors and theater goers. Building on its early artistic legacy, the hotel has for decades offered struggling writers and other artists discount lunches and rooms.