On this week’s show we will explore two famous “Roundtables” of New York: at the Algonquin Hotel, and Andy Warhol’s Factory.

My solo guest will be Rediscovering New York regular and the show’s Special Consultant, David Griffin of Landmark Branding.

Tune in for this fascinating conversation at TalkRadio.nyc or watch the Facebook Livestream by clicking here.

This week’s show David Griffin will take us on a journey to explore two famous “Roundtables” of New York: at the Algonquin Hotel, and Andy Warhol’s Factory. David is a lifelong architect enthusiast and the founder and CEO of landmark branding, David also has a special series “Called Room at the Top”, where he is the host with Jennifer Wallace. “ Call room on the Top” it’s a networking series that features tours of Manhattan's greatest buildings. David got interested in architecture when he first got hired as a kid to be costume interpreters at a Long Island museum. The Elegante hotel wasn’t always a hotel, it was a normal building where people got to pay rent and lived in their apartments. It was very common for people such as bachelors or people that have small families. It opened in 1902. Some of the famous members of the roundtable were Robert Benchley; he was a very well-known writer of that period. Dorothy Parker, ’s probably one of the most famous of the round table, she was well known for tossing around vicious insults at her friends.

Tula Bankhead was the model for the Disney villain Cruella Deville. Tula Bankhead was a stage actress at the time. She was part of a show called the “Little Fox” which was known as one of the greatest live performances of that time. The round table began to fade in 1869 in part to the Stock Market crash. It affected the style of the round table for these well-known funny lavish writers. The time wasn’t all glitz and glam, it was falling apart and you could no longer live that type of lifestyle. There was an oak room at the Elegante it was a very highly guarded place to perform. It was a very conservative and intimate room because not too many people were couldn’t get inside . It became one of New York's most premier nightclubs. Later on it closed down permanently in 2002 due to the fact David was tired and exhausted.

David is now doing a number of writing projects. David has an article and Ground Stoner he’s working on. David is also writing an article about the oldest brownstone in New York. A blog is also being created by David. The blog is about every building in The fifth Avenue. He’s also doing a new series for the New York adventure club, where they do virtual tours of global architecture. He has a talk coming up on the 26 which will be about artist homes and studios. It’s about how the great artists of the world have created their own environments, David mentioned. Andy Warhol had a way of really getting into the commercial reality of America. He did commercial drawings in fashion drawing advertisements. Andy Warhol's factory had three different locations. One of those locations was an industrial building on 241 E. 37th St. The rent Was only 100 dollars per year. Warhol had to leave in 1967 when they tore down the building. His first factory was covered in tin foil and silver paint. He did a lot of silkscreen work at his first factory. He also dipped into the filmmaking industry. The factory really had a feeling of studio 54 did as a Liza Minnelli and so many more walk through those doors.

The velvet underground was really bad. Warhol was also associated at the time. Meiko was the vocalist for the first two albums and she had a very unique voice. Baby Jane Warhol was The first of the Warhol superstars. She’s a major figure in the art world. She was an early start of Andy Warhol films. E.g. Sedgwick was a young lady who came from a very upper-class family and she kind of broadened Andy’s mind. But sadly she died of a drug overdose. The Andy Warhol era was full of artists and young people who passed away at a young age because they couldn’t keep up with the lifestyle. That was one of the reasons why the factory fell apart.