Oak Room, Algonquin Hotel (former)

Sandra Levine

The Oak Room is both a space and a venue for sophisticated cabaret in the Algonquin Hotel. Dark oak paneling makes it seem as much a library or music room in a grand English house as a supper club. It has been the preferred venue of many of the most important cabaret artists of the past thirty to fifty years, including Andrea Marcovicci, and it is one of the last such places in a city that once had many of them.

The room is a long rectangle paneled in dark oak. Banquettes line one long wall, and tables fill the rest of the space, except for the small stage in the center of the other long wall. The room is cozily dark and intimate. The singers and musicians who perform here take advantage of the intimate space to build rapport with the audience in a way that a concert stage cannot duplicate. The singer, song and audience become one.

The owners of the hotel have announced plans to close the Oak Room and turn the space into a VIP lounge as an extension of the hotels Blue Bar.