Al Hirschfeld was never a member of the Vicious Circle, the storied gathering of writers, actors and wags who traded lunchtime barbs around a round table at the Algonquin Hotel. But it’s easy to imagine he might have been.
He knew the group’s acid-tongued members personally, including critic Alexander Woolcott, playwright Gerald S. Kaufman, New Yorker editor Harold Ross and serial quipper Dorothy Parker. Read more
The New-York Historical Society is a labyrinthine building, but it’s not hard to find Madeline in New York: The Art of Ludwig Bemelmans, on view through October 19. You just follow the mob of kids (and trailing parents) to the enormous rendering of the Bemelmans’ red-headed imp that heralds the show. Read more
Seems it was only yesterday we were reporting the arrival of the Semi-Automatic, the Hudson hotel’s cool vending machine. You may recall it as the one stocked with gold-plated handcuffs, Haute Hippie sequin miniskirts and Ouiji boards instead of Doritos and M & Ms.
But today when we visited the Hudson to check out Hudson Common, the newish beer and burger court, we got a shock. Strolling over to the Semi-Automatic to see if it was still selling Equinox Derringer bikes (for $2,300) or, more realistically, toothbrushes, we discovered it was gone. Had it been moved? Read more