There Are Eight Million Stories In The Naked City. This Is One Of Mine.

I’m in New York City for about a week and staying the first part at the Algonquin Hotel.

There Are Eight Million Stories In The Naked City. This Is One Of Mine. by @marcgrossberg #city #NYC

A Molly Ivins Story

Many years ago when I was in here for a short trip, my friend Molly Ivins (now of blessed memory and then a journalist with the New York Times) suggested we meet at the Algonquin bar, the legendary watering hole of original The New Yorker staff put together by Harold Ross, the first editor.

The Algonquin Hotel is an American historic hotel located at 59 West 44th Street in Midtown ManhattanNew York City. The hotel has been designated as a New York City Historic Landmark.

The Algonquin Round Table

The group called themselves the Algonquin Round Table and included writers such as James ThurberE. B. White, S. J. Perelman, John O’HaraRobert BenchleyDorothy ParkerVladimir Nabokov, and J.D. Salinger.

Molly and I had put a few drinks away. Fueled not only by the alcohol but also by the heady history of the location, I struck up a conversation with an elegant black man who said he was a United Nations delegate from Somaliland. The conversation started pleasantly enough but his undemocratic take of how his country should be run provoked Molly.

Molly was an insistent, persistent conversationalist and interviewer with a rapier-like wit. It was not without a solid basis that a billboard went up that said “Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?” which became the title of one of her collections of columns. The conversation got quite heated, which either he or I cooled down by paying for the next round of drinks.

I guess I’ll go downstairs and hoist one for Molly.

“There are eight million stories in the naked city.”

This is one of mine.

~ July 4, 2019

 

Interested in finding out more? Stay tuned! Meanwhile, take a look at my upcoming release The Best People: A Tale of Trials And Errors available for preorder now!

The Best People: A Tale Of Trials And Errors

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3 Comments

  1. It Happens Every Day - Marc Grossberg on July 21, 2019 at 6:19 pm

    […] the moral of the story is, when you go wherever your green light tells you, the intersection might be interesting and sometimes something […]

  2. Calvin on January 16, 2020 at 12:12 am

    Neat share! Never been to NY, but hear about it all the time.

  3. […] in the summer of my 74th year, on a whim, I decided to stay in New York City for two months. It was the first time I had ever lived alone outside of Houston, Texas, and hardly […]

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