Old New York: This Room at the Iroquois is One for the Books

By Mitch Broder

I walked into the Iroquois Hotel, selected a book called “New York Confidential,” opened it up, and saw a picture of Mayor Ed Koch milking a cow.

You just can’t do that at the Algonquin.

Assuming that you’d want to.

One good reason that you can’t is that the Algonquin is boarded up. It’s enduring a renovation that could drag on till the summer. But you couldn’t even do it when the Algonquin was open, because, unlike the Iroquois, the Algonquin never had the New York Library.

The two hotels do have things in common. They’re both over a century old. They’re both named after Indian peoples. They’re both on the same block of West 44^th Street. But after that, everything changes. The Algonquin got famous. It had its Round Table. It’s had its Cat. It has an entry on Wikipedia.

The Iroquois has accepted this gracefully. And now it is accepting gracefully that for possibly half of this year its bigger competitor is on the DL. It has a chance to show Algonquin patrons what it’s got that their place hasn’t, which may not be an awful lot but does include Koch and his cow.

The New York Library is a room off the Iroquois lobby whose name leads some people to think that it’s a branch of The New York Public Library. It is not. But it is an eclectic collection of books about New York City, which may be freely enjoyed by hotel guests and by suitably discreet visitors.

The titles include “Subwayland” and “Old Penn Station,” “Broadway Musicals” and “Times Square Spectacular,” “Wall Street” and “212 Views of Central Park.” There’s “Lost New York,” “Antiquing New York,” “Tales of Gaslight New York,” “The Battle for New York,” “The Best Bars of New York,” and, nostalgically, “Great Blizzards of New York City.”

The books are accompanied by likewise quaint offerings such as newspapers and magazines, along with warm apple cider in the cool months and cool citrus water in the warm ones. All this can be savored on the leather sofa or the matching leather chairs, in the sunlight from the street windows or in the glow of the chandelier.

The faux-vintage room replaced an actual-vintage barbershop about twelve years ago, in the course of the hotel’s own renovation. It seeks a balance in time, since it’s also equipped with two computers, a printer, and a touch screen for airline arrivals and departures that made me jumpy just to look at.

A rude guest can further break the mood with cell-phone conversations, but that can happen anywhere, and here you can glare at close range. Mostly, the library’s a refuge. And at times it’s a dining room. It hosts dinners for up to eleven, to help support itself.

Ironically, all its books don’t do much to help the Iroquois compete with the Algonquin’s literary past. Nor does its own claim to fame, which is that James Dean slept there. For years. Guests ask to stay in his room. But it’s not the same as a legendary lobby.

Of course, there’s the other Iroquois story. That’s the one about Paul Geidel, the teenage bellhop who murdered a wealthy guest for a nonexistent windfall. He was locked up in 1911 — and stayed locked up for sixty-nine years. For his stretch, he made it into the Guinness Book of World Records.

Dean and Geidel together, though, can’t equal Dorothy Parker and Matilda the Cat. So the Iroquois, library and all, is content to keep its place. In fact, the manager, Robert Holmes, told me that he sympathizes with the hobbled Algonquin. He added only: “It certainly doesn’t hurt us that they’re closed.”

Get between the covers at The Iroquois New York, 49 West 44th Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, New York City.

New York Kitty: The Algonquin Princess is Mine — For a Moment

By Mitch Broder

I entered the Algonquin lobby, marched up to Olmedo the waiter, and asked: “Do you know where I could find Matilda?” He knew I meant business.

He looked around. He pointed to the back of the room. There I found her — alone at a table for six. I approached her chair. She glanced up. “At last we meet,” I smiled. Her eyes narrowed. She said nothing. She glanced back down. She licked her chest.

Still, I was happy to see her. I’d been there before, and she was nowhere to be found, since she hides under a lamp table. She’s a big gray fluffy ragdoll, which is to say that she’s a cat, which is to say that she’s the Algonquin cat, though she’s still not allowed on the furniture.

Her debutante ball is on Wednesday, but I wanted to meet her alone. I had known her retired predecessor, who was also Matilda. It’s not a coincidence. The Algonquin has had ten cats in eighty years; the first seven were Hamlet, the last three have been Matilda. It’s tough to come up with cat names.

The Algonquin is the hotel famous for its witty round table of the twenties, whose members included Robert Benchley, George S. Kaufman, Dorothy Parker, and Alexander Woollcott. I always wanted to be like them. You don’t always get what you want. But I get to lounge with their ghosts in the lobby. And I get to play with the cat.

I took pictures of her on the chair, which won’t affect her, since she’s already grounded. I lovingly scratched her neck, which I was confident she tolerated. She hopped down and clawed an armchair, which was fine, since she has no claws. I like to think that she did it because the guy in the chair was wearing a baseball cap in the Algonquin.

She trotted to the maître d’ stand, and I obediently followed. I looked down at her. She looked up at me. She took a leap and landed on the keyboard. She awaited my next move. She had found me amusing. I was sure to be invited to join the round table for lunch.

Henry the waiter gave me a special pen with which to prolong the amusement. Matilda frolicked with me, and people in the lobby began to notice. A couple told me that they were frequent guests yet had never known of the cat. I proceeded to educate them, and Matilda sneaked off. I understood. I’d had my shot.

In that, I knew that I was probably more fortunate than most, which was confirmed by Edwin Garcia, the front office supervisor. “We have people coming from all over the world just looking for Matilda,” he told me. “There are people who come to stay at the Algonquin because Matilda lives here.”

Matilda, in fact, has a spokeswoman, Alice de Almeida. (She also has an e-mail address, a Facebook page, and a Twitter account.)

Alice observed: “She’s the only one I know who can sleep on the job.”

Which could make Matilda the Algonquin legend that I want to be like most of all.

Play cat and mouse with Matilda at the Algonquin, 59 West 44th Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, in Manhattan.