Algonquin Round Table



The Algonquin Round Table was a celebrated group of New York City writers, critics, actors and wits. In 1920 Indiana Jones was introduced to this group by Kate Rivers where he attended at least two lunches.

The Algonquin Round Table started initially as part of a practical joke, when members of "The Vicious Circle", as they dubbed themselves, met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel at 59 West 44th Street in Manhattan. These luncheons were held from 1919 until roughly 1929 where the group engaged in wisecracks, wordplay and witticisms that, through the newspaper columns of Round Table members, were disseminated across the country.

Daily association with each other, both at the luncheons and outside of them, inspired members of the Circle to collaborate creatively. The entire group worked together successfully only once, however, to create a revue called No Sirree! which helped launch a Hollywood career for Round Tabler Robert Benchley.

In its ten years of association, the Round Table and a number of its members acquired national reputations both for their contributions to literature and for their sparkling wit. Although some of their contemporaries, and later in life even some of its members, disparaged the group, its reputation has endured long after its dissolution.