According to published reports,the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel is no more. It will now become "a lounge for Marriott Reward Elite guests." The next time you consider staying at a Marriott hotel, remember who committed that act of cultural vandalism. The Algonquin Round Table was a celebrated group of New York City writers, critics, actors and wits. Gathering initially as part of a practical joke, members of "The Vicious Circle", as they dubbed themselves, met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel from 1919 until roughly 1929. At these luncheons they engaged in wisecracks, wordplay and witticisms that, through the newspaper columns of Round Table members, were disseminated across the country. In its ten years of association, the Round Table and a number of its members acquired national reputations both for their contributions to literature and for their sparkling wit. Although some of their contemporaries, and later in life even some of its members, disparaged the group, its reputation has endured long after its dissolution. Charter members of the Round Table included: Franklin Pierce Adams, columnist; Robert Benchley, humorist and actor; Heywood Broun, columnist and sportswriter (married to Ruth Hale); Marc Connelly, playwright; Ruth Hale, freelance writer who worked for women's rights; George S. Kaufman, playwright and director; Dorothy Parker, critic, poet, short-story writer, and screenwriter; Harold Ross, The New Yorker editor; Robert E. Sherwood, author and playwright; Alexander Woollcott, critic and journalist. Marriott Corporate Office | Headquarters 600 Unicorn Park Drive Woburn, MA 01801 (781)537-5204