Board meetings, presentations, product launches, press events, holiday parties and small weddings can be organized here for 12 to 200 guests. The Algonquin Hotel stands at 59 West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, two blocks from Times Square.
Seminars and company events
The hotel offers 4,372 sq ft of function space across six event rooms, three of which work as breakout rooms. The setup suits a leadership offsite, an investor meeting, an interview day or a conference session with a reception afterward. The Oak Room handles the main session and can be split in two with air walls, so a workshop and a cocktail hour can run side by side. Two boardrooms on the second floor each seat 12 around a single table. Catering, audiovisual equipment and an events team are all on site, and the hotel has a dedicated sales and catering contact for group requests.
Weddings and receptions
The hotel sells its rooms for small weddings, rehearsal dinners, cocktail parties and other private celebrations. The Oak Room seats 100 for a dinner, and the Round Table Lounge, open to the lobby, holds 200 for a standing reception. The Barrymore Suite works as a getting-ready room, a green room or a space for a toast.
Rooms and capacities
The Oak Room is the largest private room at 1,650 sq ft. It takes 125 theater style, 100 for a banquet and 140 for a reception. Its original oak paneling is hung with Hirschfeld caricatures. The Round Table Lounge covers 3,591 sq ft and holds up to 200 standing, around the round table where the writers' group once met. The Barrymore Suite, 655 sq ft, takes 25 in classroom or U-shape and can also be set for drinks. The Helen Hayes Room and the Library Boardroom each measure 209 sq ft and seat 12 conference style. The Library Boardroom has shelves of first editions, signed books and old magazines, plus a wall-mounted screen.
Accommodation
Attendees can stay in the hotel itself, which is part of the Autograph Collection by Marriott. Rooms were redesigned during a full renovation in 2012 by the designer Alexandra Champalimaud.
Catering
The hotel's culinary team caters all events, from a working lunch in a boardroom to a seated dinner in the Oak Room. The Blue Bar, opened in 1933 when Prohibition ended, serves an all-day menu and cocktails and suits informal drinks after a session.
History and setting
The Algonquin opened on November 22, 1902. From 1919 to 1929 a circle of writers and critics, including Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley and Alexander Woollcott, met here for lunch every day and became known as the Round Table. Harold Ross, one of the group, founded The New Yorker in 1925, and the musical My Fair Lady was written upstairs. The Oak Room opened as a cabaret in 1981 and launched singers such as Harry Connick Jr. and Diana Krall. A resident cat has lived in the hotel since the 1920s.
Getting there
Grand Central Terminal and Bryant Park are a short walk away, and Times Square is two blocks west. LaGuardia, JFK and Newark airports all serve Manhattan.
