47.0°,
Mostly Cloudy Checking in with the Algonquin Hotel
Hewlett Bay Park native writes book about city landmark
Hewlett Bay Park native and playwright Michael Colby has chronicled a portion of his life in the book, “The Algonquin Kid,” about his weekend visits with his grandparents who owned the landmark Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan, and its history.
Ben and Mary Bodne, owned the hotel from 1946 to 1987. Colby, 64, and his brothers, Douglas and David, would visit there many times. Colby then lived there from 1969 to 1987 until his grandparents sold the hotel. “My grandmother introduced me to celebrities at the hotel and regularly took me to see Broadway shows,” Colby said. “It would be the location where I would write my own musicals and one day rehearse them in a corner of the hotel known as the Annex.”
Colby, who lived in Hewlett Bay Park, attended Woodmere Academy (now Lawrence Woodmere Academy) from kindergarten until graduation. His family worshipped at Temple Beth El in Cedarhurst. Colby earned a bachelor’s in English at Northwestern University and a master’s in drama at New York University.
“Until now, many books and other media have portrayed the hotel’s famous Round Table era, from the 1920s and 1930s, where famous Manhattan wits would meet at Algonquin lunches and exchange quotable quips,” Colby said. “The equally fascinating and historic decades that followed — and the hotel’s cavalcade of celebrities, literati, and trendsetters — have never extensively been chronicled until this book.”
The Algonquin Hotel is important to people because it’s a bridge to a time of elegance, excellence and creativity of an era gone by. Colby said.
