by Rowena Mills
The Algonquin Hotel at 59 West 44th Street in New York City is famous for
two longtime traditions — literary and feline.
Starting in 1919 and into the 1930s, it was the meeting place of the Algonquin Round Table, an informal group of writers, journalists, and artists who met every weekday for lunch at a large round table. Among them were Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, Heywood Hale Broun, Robert Benchley, Robert Sherwood, George S. Kaufman, Franklin P. Adams, Marc Connelly, Harold Ross, Harpo Marx, and Russell Crouse. They were lively, witty, urbane, and sophisticated.
The Algonquin Hotel had a cat named Billy in the 1920s. After he died, the first orange tabby, Rusty, showed up. Frequent guest John Barrymore renamed him Hamlet for obvious theatrical reasons. Since then, the Algonquin has housed seven more males named Hamlet and three ragdoll females named Matilda — all rescues.
The current orange tabby Algonquin cat, now known as Hamlet VIII, had been a young kitty in a trap-neuter-return endeavor (indicated by his slightly cropped left ear). A kind person spotted him searching for food in a feral cat colony in Hempstead on Long Island in June 2017 and took him to the Bidawee animal shelter.
It so happened that the Algonquin’s cat, Matilda III, was going to retire after seven years on the job, and the hotel was seeking an orange tabby male. In July 2017, Hamlet VIII moved into the Algonquin and studied with Matilda and a cat trainer. He made his debut in August at the Algonquin’s annual cat fashion show, which benefits the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals. By September, Hamlet
was the hotel’s full-time feline ambassador, morphing from street cat to celebrity in three months.
Hamlet, who has sat for four portraits, enjoys meeting hotel guests, says Jason Yao, the Algonquin’s operations manager. He assists Hamlet with social media, fan mail, grooming, and feeding. Hamlet doesn’t like to be picked up but otherwise soaks up love and attention. He receives gifts such as bow ties and monogrammed bowls from people everywhere. He likes wand toys and balls, and he naps on a multilevel cat tree and on the windowsill.
Hamlet isn’t the only animal in the hotel. Guests at the Algonquin can bring cats and dogs with advance notice.
The 181-room hotel, a New York City designated landmark, was opened on November 22, 1902, and was renovated a few years ago. It is in Midtown Manhattan near Times Square. It still has a Round Table Restaurant — with the same round table where the literati gathered years ago. If their ghosts still meet there now, they will see an orange tabby named Hamlet….
