The Algonquin Hotel Times Square, Autograph Collection

The Algonquin Hotel had frequently writer and poet Dorothy Parker as a guest. She had the reputation to be the wittiest woman in the country and a hard drinker. She tried 4 suicides but failed. At the end, her liver gave way, although some sources state she died from a heart attack, at the age of 73.
In her will, she bequeathed her estate to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. foundation.

She was a founding member of the "Algonquin Round Table": a celebrated group of New York City writers, critics, actors and wits. A few of the famous members and visitors, besides Dorothy Parker, were Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, Heywood Broun, Marc Connelly, Franklin P. Adams, Edna Ferber, George S. Kaufman, Robert Sherwood, Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt, Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninshield and Frank Case.