Lecture: From Thomas Wolfe to the Mamas and the Papas – The venerable Hotel Albert in Greenwich Village

Free lecture, but reservations required – please e-mail rsvp@gvshp.org

Accounts of New York’s literary and artistic life invariably mention the Algonquin Hotel and the Chelsea Hotel, but rarely do they credit the Hotel Albert – perhaps because today the Albert, on University Place and East 10th Street, is a quiet co-op complex. Yet the Albert – designed by Henry Hardenbergh, architect of the Plaza Hotel and the Dakota Apartments – has hosted a riotously rich group of creative New Yorkers. Famous writers and painters from its early years include Robert Louis Stevenson, who posed in his room here for sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens; Hart Crane, who worked on his epic poem celebrating the Brooklyn Bridge; and Thomas Wolfe, who used the Albert as his model for the Hotel Leopold in Of Time and the River. Mark Twain lectured at the Albert in 1901, and Walt Whitman is said to have been sighted there. African-American literary figures who stayed at the Albert in the 1950s included Chester Himes, Richard Wright, Charles Wright, and later Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka.  Among visual artists, Albert Pinkham Ryder, the hotel manager’s brother, based his painting, “The Race Track,” on an event at the Albert, while in later years  Jackson Pollock attended dinners at the Albert. Political radicals found refuge in the Albert – and John Scopes stayed here while rounding up supporters for his famous “monkey trial” in Tennessee.

After World War II, when the Albert fell on hard times, its low prices attracted dozens of rock musicians. It was at the Albert that The Mamas & The Papas’ wrote “California Dreamin’,” Lovin’ Spoonful wrote “Do You Believe in Magic,” and Tim Buckley wrote “Bussin’ Fly.” Other musicians who spent time at the Albert included the Mothers of Invention, Jim Morrison, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor. Many of them used the Albert’s basement for rehearsals and impromptu jam sessions – as Lillian Roxon, author of The Rock Encyclopedia, wrote, “The basement became a shrine; and no musician feels he’s a musician unless he’s stayed at the Albert and rehearsed among the pools of water and the cockroaches.”

This illustrated lecture examines the Albert’s history and its illustrious roster of residents from the 1880s to the 1970s. It’s based on the history of the Albert I wrote for the current co-op: click here. For more on the Albert, visit the building’s web site.