The Algonquin Hotel’s famed Oak Room is closing its doors — and New York’s biggest names in cabaret and jazz yesterday sang sad songs of farewell.
“My New York career started at the Oak Room, and I can’t imagine the city without it,” singer/pianist Michael Feinstein said in a written statement.
The Algonquin is undergoing renovations and when the hotel reopens, the supper club, which began 32 years ago, and echoed with performances by artists including Harry Connick Jr., Diana Krall, KT Sullivan, Karen Akers, Barbara Carroll and Emily Bergl, will not be there, the manager announced this week.
“An essential part of the hotel’s identity will be lost with its closure,” Feinstein said. “I think they are making a big mistake,” added the artist, who runs his own nightclub, Feinstein’s at Loews Regency.
Andrea Marcovicci was also in mourning.
The singer said she was “heartsick” to hear of the closing of a place she called “my musical home and creative inspiration for 25 years.”
“From my first entrance in 1987, a jumble of nerves, to my last encore just this past Christmas, I have been blessed with the finest, warmest audiences a performer could ever hope for, and the most beautiful room in which to entertain,” she said in a statement.
Part of the room’s history includes a link to the famed “Round Table” whose acerbic members included Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley. The literary salon first met in 1919 in what was then called the “Pergola Room.”
Gary Budge, the Algonquin’s general manager, said the Oak Room is being closed while the hotel undergoes renovations and “repurposed” because “even with terrific talent, we have had declining audiences.”
He said some of the space will be used to extend the existing Blue Bar by adding seating.
“The remainder of the space will be used to provide a special amenity for our Marriott Reward Elite travelers,” he said.
The “amenity” will be a private breakfast space for their use, Budge said.