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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Lounging at the Waldorf

March 1, 2017 by Terry Teachout

New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel is closing today for what are being euphemistically described as “renovations.” In fact, the hotel in whose upper stories Herbert Hoover and Douglas MacArthur once lived is going to be turned into a warren of luxury condos, and while it’s said that some of the building will continue to function as a hotel after it reopens, there is some doubt as to whether that particular promise will be kept. If I had to bet, I’d say that the Waldorf is destined to go the way of the Algonquin Hotel’s Oak Room, where I used to see all the great cabaret artists and which is now…well, I’d rather not talk about it.

I have a sentimental attachment to the Waldorf, having written a play that’s set there. Alas, I only stayed in the Waldorf once, forty years ago, on my first visit to New York City, a week-long school trip that I later described in a memoir of my small-town youth:

Not long after I came to William Jewell College, I went on a week-long pilgrimage to the Emerald City, courtesy of Richard Harriman, the worldly professor of English who ran the college’s concert series and who took a lucky handful of students to New York every December. That was the week I went to the Café Carlyle to see Bobby Short, but that wasn’t all I did, not by a long shot. Rummaging through my mother’s cupboard the other day, I found a manila envelope full of souvenirs of my visit to New York. There was my program from Harold Prince’s Broadway production of Candide; there were Lincoln Center and Radio City Music Hall and Mikhail Baryshnikov, fresh out of Russia, soaring across the stage of the Uris Theater; there was a memorandum scrawled in an unformed hand on Waldorf-Astoria stationery (when you traveled with Mr. Harriman, you traveled first-clss) telling where I had eaten dinner each night. The food I ate dazzled me as much as the sights I saw, for I had been raised on Kraft Dinner and Chef Boy-Ar-Dee pizza in a box, and the act of ordering vichyssoise from a haughty waiter at “21” very nearly made me swoon.

I confess to remembering nothing in particular about the room in which I stayed, which seems to me forgivable, since I had a whole lot to remember about that week. I’m sure I’ve stayed in fancier hotel rooms since then. Still, the Waldorf has always held a special place in my imagination as a touchstone of elegance—and, believe it or not, as the one and only Manhattan hotel in which I’ve spent the night. I stayed with friends on my next two visits, after which I pulled up stakes and moved to New York for good.

True or not, I like to think I started—and ended—at the top.

* * *

Fats Waller and His Rhythm perform “Lounging at the Waldorf” in 1938:

Snapshot: John Fahey plays “Red Pony”

March 1, 2017 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERAJohn Fahey plays his “Red Pony” on a 1969 episode of Folk Guitar With Laura Weber, originally telecast by KQED in San Francisco:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

Almanac: Alexander Pope on fools

March 1, 2017 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLEThe fool is happy that he knows no more.

Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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