Walking with Writers F. S C O T T F I T Z G E R A L D IN NEW YORK: A GUIDE
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Chronology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 200 Claremont Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 The Ritz-Carlton Hotel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 The Plaza Hotel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 The Mansfield Hotel New York. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 38 West 59th Street . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Fifth Avenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 St. Patrick’s Cathedral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Charles Scribners & Sons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Yale Club of New York City. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 The Biltmore Hotel (335 Madison Avenue) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 The Commodore Hotel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 New York Public Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 The Knickerbocker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Algonquin Hotel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Ambassador Theatre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 The Empire State Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Union Square . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Greenwich Village . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Washington Square. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Delmonico’s. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Queensboro Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 6 Gateway Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
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CHRONOLOGY 24 September 1896 - Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald born at 481 Laurel Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota. 26 March 1920 - Fitzgerald’s first novel, This Side of Paradise, published by Scribner’s. 3 April 1920 - Fitzgerald marries Zelda Sayre at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. 26 October 1921 - Birth of Scottie Fitzgerald, the Fitzgeralds’ only child. 10 April 1925 - Publication of The Great Gatsby. May 1925 - Fitzgerald meets Ernest Hemingway in Dingo Bar, Paris. January 1927 - The Fitzgeralds go to Hollywood, where Scott works on the unproduced film ‘Lipstick’. April 1930 - Zelda experiences her first psychological breakdown in Paris. November 1931 - Fitzgerald’s second spell in Hollywood, this time to work on RedHeaded Woman for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. 12 April 1934 - Publication of Tender Is the Night. July 1937 - Fitzgeralds returns to Hollywood for the third time, working for MGM at $1,000 per week. He moves into an apartment at the Garden of Allah Hotel on Sunset Boulevard. July 1937 - Fitzgerald meets Sheilah Graham, who becomes his partner. April 1938 - Fitzgerald rents a bungalow at Malibu Beach, California. October 1938 - Fitzgerald relocates to a cottage at ‘Belly Acres’, Encino. May 1940 - Fitzgerald moves to 1403 North Laurel Avenue, Hollywood. 21 December 1940 - Fitzgerald dies of a heart attack at Sheilah Graham’s apartment, 1443 North Hayworth Avenue,
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MAP
Manhattan 1. 200 Claremont Avenue 2. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel 3. The Plaza Hotel 4. The Mansfield Hotel New York 5. 38 West 59th Street 6. Fifth Avenue 7. St. Patrick’s Cathedral
8. Charles Scribners & Sons 9. Yale Club of New York City 10.The Biltmore Hotel (335 Madison Avenue) 11.The Commodore Hotel 12.New York Public Library 13.The Knickerbocker 14.Algonquin Hotel
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Long Island 15.Ambassador Theatre 16.The Empire State Building 17.Union Square 18.Greenwich Village 19.Washington Square 20.Delmonico’s 21.Queensboro Bridge
22. 6 Gateway Drive
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Early Life and Early Success (1912-1922) New York City played a pivotal role in the early career of F. Scott Fitzgerald. His debut novel, This Side of Paradise, published in 1920, made the young author famous overnight and turned him and his young wife Zelda Sayre into a celebrity couple. Their lifestyle was marked by a joyous, almost absurd, attitude towards life, and by a total immersion into the frenetic energy that New York City had - and continues to have - on tap. Intoxicated by wealth and fame, and high on the sleepless splendor of the city, Fitzgerald and Zelda reportedly jumped into the Union Square fountain, rode down Fifth Avenue on the roofs of taxicabs and swam in the Pulitzer fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel. At other times, Fitzgerald would get into fights with waiters while Zelda danced on people’s dinner tables. Even though Fitzgerald only lived in New York City for two years, there is hardly a corner of Manhattan he left untouched. According to the ledger Fitzgerald kept throughout the years 1919-1938, the author first ventured to New York in January 1912, when he was just 15 years old. During this time, Fitzgerald was a prep-school student (not a particularly good one) at the Newman School, situated in Hackensack New Jersey, some 18 miles away from Manhattan. The closest we get to Fitzgerald’s actual first impression of the Big Apple is through one of his Basil Lee stories, The Freshest Boy (1928). Basil, a St. Regis prep-school student, looks forward to his first visit to New York. Being just 15 years old, Basil explains that he is allowed a visit to New York once a month, accompanied by a master. Basil looks forward to the prospect of visiting the city, and its promise gains exponentially each time he is denied the trip for breaking the rules at St. Regis. Eventually, the trip comes to mean everything
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to the young boy. Similarly, for the young Fitzgerald, New York possessed a certain charm, and an escape from reality; the city offered a window into a what he described as a long-waited heaven of romance. Fitzgerald’s ledger entries for February and April reveal several other monthly visits to the city. As for Basil Lee (and supposedly Fitzgerald), his activities in New York eventually start to include luncheons at the Manhattan Hotel, where he orders a club sandwich and French fried potatoes. He begins to observe the nonchalant, debonair, blasé New Yorkers at the other tables. Basil also goes to matinees on Saturday afternoons and attends some shows. In September 1913, Fitzgerald was accepted to study at Princeton University, nearly 62 miles away from Manhattan, but still accessible by train. At Princeton, Fitzgerald started writing shows and lyrics for the Princeton Triangle Club - the oldest collegiate musical comedy organisation in the United States. Fitzgerald’s dedication to The Triangle Club was detrimental to nearly all of his University degree subjects. His Triangle writing occasionally brought him to New York. In his ledger entry of April 1915, Fitzgerald records New York △ show. During Fitzgerald’s time at Princeton - between 1913 and 1917, the year he dropped out - Fitzgerald didn’t manage to visit New York that often. One important trip to the city was in early June of 1915, with Ginevra King Fitzgerald’s girlfriend who would later serve as the inspiration for several of his fictional characters. They went to two plays: Nobody Home and The Midnight Frolic and had drinks on the rooftop terrace of the Ritz. February 1917 sees more trips to New York City: Fitzgerald visits Washington Square with his friend Bunny Wilson and drinks tea at the Plaza. After dropping out of Princeton in
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1917, Fitzgerald enlisted in the army. He was transferred to, among other places, Camp Taylor in Kentucky (where he met John Peale Bishop, one of his old Princeton friends), Camp Gordon in Georgia, and eventually Camp Sheridan, near Montgomery, where he met Zelda Sayre. In his ledger he records that he fell in love on the 7th of September 1918. The following years were particularly eventful and reveal much about the rise of Fitzgerald and Zelda as one of the most famous New York couples of all time. In early November 1918, Fitzgerald was transferred to Camp Mills, Long Island, and slowly became disenchanted with military life. At one point, Fitzgerald’s unit was marched onto a transport, only to be marched off again. Fitzgerald decided to sneak off and went into New York to drink champagne at The Knickerbocker hotel. However, Fitzgerald discovered his unit was suddenly on the move again, after which he hurried himself to Pennsylvania Station in order to rejoin them in Washington. When he eventually returned to Camp Sheridan, Alabama, Fitzgerald spent December and January with Zelda, and subsequently proposed to her. However, Zelda proved hard to win and was initially not too enthusiastic about an engagement to Fitzgerald. She wondered whether Fitzgerald would ever earn enough money for them to marry and live as she desired. Fitzgerald writes that she kept him firmly at bay. On 14 February 1919, Fitzgerald received his discharge from the army. Restless and eager to make some money, he started to look for a job in New York City. Fitzgerald reached New York on 19 February, and immediately wired Zelda the following: DARLING HEART AMBITION ENTHUSIASM AND CONFIDENCE I DECLARE EVERYTHING GLORIOUS THIS WORLD IS A GAME AND WHILE I FEEL 8
SURE OF YOUR LOVE EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE I AM IN THE LAND OF AMBITION AND SUCCESS. Fitzgerald eventually managed to find a job writing advertising slogans (mainly for streetcar cards) for the Barron Collier agency. He also found a room at 200 Claremont Avenue, which Fitzgerald described as horrible and in the middle of nowhere. Fitzgerald lived in this apartment from February 1919 until May of the same year. During the day, Fitzgerald worked at the advertising agency. At night, he wrote poetry and short stories and by accounts felt totally defeated. Unable to comfort Zelda through his letters, Fitzgerald visited her in Montgomery in June, where she told him she wanted to break their engagement. Fitzgerald, heartbroken and poor, was unable to purchase a ticket back to New York, but managed to get there by sneaking into the daycoach. Still determined to write the novel that would win Zelda back, Fitzgerald quit his advertising job and left for his hometown of St. Paul on the 4th of July. Here, in his third-floor front room at 599 Summit, Fitzgerald worked hard on This Side of Paradise, finishing the manuscript on 3 September 1919. With the prospect of a book being published, Fitzgerald and Zelda got re-engaged, and Fitzgerald returned to New York for November and December in a celebratory mood. Having sold several short stories for a considerable sum, and having won the girl of his dreams, Fitzgerald got drunk on champagne, left on the tap in his bathroom, and accidentally flooded The Knickerbocker hotel. Fitzgerald visited St. Paul for Christmas and visited New Orleans in January 1920, selling more stories in the meantime. Fitzgerald returned to New York to complete the sale of his short story Head and Shoulders to the movies. He
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celebrated by purchasing an expensive blue feather fan for Zelda and by treating himself to all the luxuries New York had to offer: he swanned around the city exposing hundred-dollar bills in his vest pockets, which his friends eventually had to take away from him and store in the hotel vault. Also, when two old friends visited him, they found him being bathed by two bellboys in his hotel room. On 26 March 1920, This Side of Paradise was published, and Fitzgerald wired Zelda: HAVE TAKEN ROOMS AT THE BILTMORE AND WILL EXPECT YOU FRIDAY OR SATURDAY‌ FIRST EDITION OF THE BOOK IS SOLD OUT The Fitzgeralds got married in the rectory of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Fifth Avenue on Saturday 3 April 1920. Fitzgerald was 23 years old, and Zelda was just 19. They celebrated their honeymoon at the Biltmore Cottage, where they threw parties and dinners. Biographer Andrew Turnbull wrote that their honeymoon period at the Biltmore ended rather brusquely: the Fitzgeralds were asked to leave, the continuing hilarity of their presence being considered prejudicial to good order and restful nights. Hence, the Fitzgeralds moved their honeymoon to The Commodore, only to hold more parties. With the uncertainties of 1919 over and the promise of wealth and luxury in the air, Fitzgerald and Zelda introduced America to a new era that would later become known as the Jazz Age - a phrase coined by Fitzgerald. Through the publication of This Side of Paradise, Fitzgerald became a hero of his generation overnight. Fitzgerald had money to burn; he had made over $18,000 in 1920. As a result, the inseparable couple became intoxicated by their fame and riches and were all over the gossip columns for their outrageous antics. Fitzgerald later wrote that during this time they were lost - scarcely knowing who they were or where they were.Fitzgerald soon discovered that partying in New York was not
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beneficial to his writing. Despite earning a small fortune, he was also $1600 in debt, which genuinely distressed him. Thus, Fitzgerald and Zelda left New York in May, resolved to leave the bustle and chaos of the glittering city behind them for a more peaceful and restful country existence. They bought a secondhand Marmon car and headed for Westchester Country and nearby Westport, Connecticut, a two-hour drive from New York City. Here, the Fitzgeralds stayed in a grey, shingle-style house - Burritt Wakeman Place, 244 Compo Road South. Throughout May and June, however, weekend guests continued to knock at their door, resulting in just as much partying as before. At the end of July, Fitzgerald and Zelda found themselves back in New York City. By the middle of August, the couple had returned to Westport once more. Although Zelda considered West Port to be unendurably dull, Fitzgerald told Maxwell Perkins, his editor at Scribner’s, that the dullness of Westport in fact improved his discipline. During this period, Fitzgerald worked hard on his second novel: The Beautiful and Damned. Between October 1920 and April 1921, the Fitzgeralds were back living in New York. They rented an apartment at 38 West 59th Street, right across from Central Park. When he was not making merry with friends and acquaintances, Fitzgerald worked strenuously on The Beautiful and Damned. Fitzgerald’s December entry for his ledger noted that the couple had a lonely Christmas. Perhaps this is the lonely New York Christmas Fitzgerald later described in “My Lost City”, when he and Zelda had not one friend in the city, and New York appeared to have forgotten them.
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Long Island (1922-1924) Great Neck was home to quite a party scene between 1922 and 1924 and the Fitzgeralds fitted right in - hosting huge, infamous gatherings at 6 Gateway Drive. During their first year in Great Neck, their home became a haven for New York party-goers and the Fitzgeralds spent a fortune keeping everyone entertained. During his time at Great Neck, Fitzgerald also befriended the writer Ring Lardner, and he and Fitzgerald got into some epic adventures. One night, Fitzgerald convinced Lardner to visit the writer Joseph Conrad with him. In order to express their admiration for the author, they ended up performing a jig on his lawn. Fitzgerald and Zelda’s Long Island residence lasted a total of 19 months, from October 1922 until April 1924. Fitzgerald described 1923 as being the most miserable year he’d had since he was 19. Creatively, Fitzgerald’s time at Great Neck was rather barren. He mostly worked on revisions of The Vegetable — his full-length play he hoped was going to make him rich forever — and spent many hours on the Long Island Express travelling back and forth to play rehearsals, while his nights were claimed by entertaining numerous guests. The Vegetable, however, turned out to be a failure: its production closed after a single staging at the Apollo Theatre in Atlantic City in the middle of November. Yet, Fitzgerald’s Long Island layover was not entirely fruitless, for it did result in a renewed urge to work on his new novel. The author’s daily commutes to the city through the ash dumps on the outskirts of New York brought inspiration - they are vividly described in The Great Gatsby.
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At Gateway Drive, Fitzgerald also produced eleven stories, earning him over $17,000. Six months later, Fitzgerald wrote that he had got his health back. By April 1924, Scott and Zelda had suddenly decided to abandon their life in Great Neck to go to France and live on as little money as possible. Fitzgerald later wrote in a departing gesture he felt they were escaping the wild extremes of their lives. Fitzgerald and Zelda’s stay in Long Island had left the couple mentally and financially exhausted, and marks their definite farewell to New York City and its surroundings as a place where they could live. Other visits would follow, but these were never to come close to the joyful exuberance and complete abandon that they experienced in those early years. The author’s relationship with New York, or what he refers to as that Incalculable city‌ was brief yet eventful, disillusioned yet high-powered. As Fitzgerald biographer David Brown notes, Fitzgerald remains primarily associated with New York in the popular imagination, despite all his wanderings between Long Island and Europe, St. Paul, Towson and Baltimore, and finally Appalachian North Carolina and Hollywood, and the fact that his Manhattan / Long Island residence lasted a mere two years. Nevertheless, Fitzgerald seized those two years by the horns. As a result, he and Zelda have become partly responsible for defining a New York City we are still familiar with nowadays: its glamour and decadence continue to exist alongside its crystalline promises. In the 1920s, Fitzgerald proved instrumental to the creation of this mirage, but the 1930s saw him disillusioned by the very same force he once helped to shape.
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200 CLAREMONT AVENUE
This was Fitzgerald’s bachelor pad from February until May 1919. Here is where the 23-year-old author started writing This Side of Paradise. In order to secure a stable income, Fitzgerald also found a job working for Baron Collier Agency, an advertising company. At night, Fitzgerald wrote stories, poems or anything that would sell, as his primary goal was to become successful enough to marry Zelda.
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THE RITZ-CARLTON HOTEL (formerly 46th Street and Madison Avenue)
Fitzgerald often went to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, one time with Ginevra King, his first girlfriend, he wrote how for one night her presence illuminated the Ritz roof. In “My Lost City�, Fitzgerald additionally remembers a luncheon he once had at the Ritz with Kay Laurel and George Jean Nathan in its Japanese gardens. The first Ritz-Carlton Hotel was located at 46th Street and Madison Avenue, one block behind Fifth Avenue, but this building was demolished in 1951. Since 1999, there has been a new Ritz-Carlton at 50 Central Park S (the former Hotel St. Moritz).
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The Plaza Hotel 768 5th Avenue (across from Central Park)
The Plaza Hotel was built in 1907 and since then has become an emblem of New York; it received National Historic Landmark Status in 1978. As for Fitzgerald and Zelda, they found themselves at home in its elegance and extravagance, and they spent much of their time here, partying through the night. It is said that one night they jumped into the Pulitzer fountain outside of the hotel. Furthermore, a pivotal scene in The Great Gatsby takes place at the Plaza Hotel, when on a hot day the party of Nick Carraway, Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby decides to
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take a suite at the hotel. Tom then accuses Gatsby of being a fraud. Hemingway once wrote Fitzgerald that when his friend Fitzgerald would die, we can take your liver and give it to the Princeton Museum, [and] your heart to the Plaza Hotel. The Plaza was Fitzgerald’s main go-to when he was in New York, and Fitzgerald and Zelda drank cocktails at its bar and in its grilling room. Fitzgerald also wrote in My Lost City that it was a tradition of his to climb to the Plaza Roof to observe the city in all its beauty.
The Fitzgeralds left their mark on the hotel: the Rose Bar hosts Gatsby Hour, playing jazz and serving prohibition-themed cocktails, while the Pal Court serves Fitzgerald Tea during their afternoon tea. During Christmas, the Plaza has a Gatsby-themed Christmas tree in honour of the Fitzgeralds, and the hotel even has a Fitzgerald Suite with Jazz Age memorabilia in the room. On their website it says that …this elegant suite perfectly evokes the era of author F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of The Plaza’s most illustrious patrons. A one-night stay costs around $2,000.
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The Mansfield Hotel New York 12 West 44th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues)
The Mansfield is where the Max Gerlach, the apparent inspiration for the character of Jay Gatsby, once lived. Evidence for his acquaintance with Fitzgerald comes from a note to Fitzgerald signed by him, which reads in true Gatsby style; Enroute from the coast – Here for a few days on business – How are you and the family old sport? Max appears to have been a Long Island bootlegger who was fabricated his background, pedigree and military rank.
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38 West 59th Street
Fitzgerald spent the first year of his married life to Zelda at this address, which they rented between October 1920 and April 1921. The apartment is situated right across Central Park and is conveniently located near the Plaza Hotel — this way they could order meals, as Zelda was more interested in living the exorbitant life of the famous and wealthy rather than abiding by the 1920s standards of marriage. This is also where Fitzgerald worked strenuously on his second novel, titled The Beautiful and Damned, and it is where they stayed until they found out Zelda was pregnant with their daughter Scottie, after which they moved to Europe.
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Fitzgerald’s December 1920 entry for his ledger notes that the couple had a lonesome Christmas, when he and Zelda had not a single friend in the city, or a place to visit. This illustrates Fitzgerald’s turbulent relationship with the city.
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Fifth Avenue
Fitzgerald must have walked up and down Fifth Avenue a million times. Charles Scribner’s & Sons was situated here, as was St. Patrick’s Cathedral — where he and Zelda married. It was also right around the corner from his apartment and the Plaza Hotel, and would have led him straight to the Knickerbocker. The Yale club was here, as were several other hotels Fitzgerald and Zelda frequented. There are several anecdotes of Fitzgerald and Zelda’s eccentric behaviour on Fifth Avenue. In May 1919, Fitzgerald and his undergraduate Yale friend, Porter Gillespie, rolled empty champagne bottles along Fifth Avenue on a Sunday morning. In “My Lost City”, Fitzgerald recalls riding on the top of taxicabs in the 1920s.
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St. Patrick’s Cathedral East side of Fifth Avenue, between 50th and 51st Streets
On 26 March 1920, This Side of Paradise was published. A week later, on 3 April, Fitzgerald married Zelda Sayre at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. The only other persons present at the ceremony were Ludlow Fowler, one of Fitzgerald’s college friends, and Zelda’s sister, Rosalind. After the ceremony the priest said to them: ‘You be a good Episcopalian, Zelda, and, Scott, you be a good catholic, and you’ll get along fine.’
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Charles Scribner’s & Sons 597 5th Avenue
Fitzgerald was the youngest author ever published by Scribner’s. On one occasion, Fitzgerald visited Scribner’s to pay homage to Edith Wharton. Fitzgerald burst in on a conference in Mr. Scribner’s own office and introduced himself to her. Reportedly, Fitzgerald threw himself at her feet exclaiming his respects for Wharton: He just couldn’t let the author of Ethan Frome pass through New York without paying his respects!
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Yale Club of New York City 50 Vanderbilt Avenue
Princeton used to share the Yale Club in Midtown Manhattan, and Fitzgerald spent much of his time there during Spring 1919, socialising with friends and working in the library. In The Great Gatsby the character Nick Carraway would take dinner at the Yale Club and then study in the library as it was a good place to hide from friends and get on with some work.
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The Biltmore Hotel 355 Madison Avenue
Before this building became the Bank of America, the Biltmore Hotel stood luxuriously as one of three palatial hotels constructed as part of the Terminal City development (the others are the Roosevelt Hotel and the Commodore Hotel, known today as the Grand Hyatt). The Fitzgeralds spent their honeymoon at this luxurious hotel after their wedding in the spring of 1920: “We are married. The Sibylline parrots
are protesting the sway of the first bobbed heads in the Biltmore panelled luxe. The hotel is trying to look older.� The Biltmore is where Fitzgerald began writing his second novel, The Beautiful and Damned. The Fitzgeralds were asked to leave the Biltmore after a few weeks as their partying was keeping other guests up. Fitzgerald and Zelda then
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moved to the Commodore Hotel to continue their honeymoon. Fitzgerald slept at the Biltmore on other occasions and used to drink with fellow Princetonians in the Biltmore Bar during the early, lonesome months of 1919. Fitzgerald rented rooms for Zelda and her sister for the days preceding their wedding.
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The Commodore Hotel (The Grand Hyatt New York) 109 E 42nd Street
The Commodore Hotel opened on January 28, 191, and at the time its lobby was considered “The Most Beautiful Lobby in the World”. In September 25, 1980, the hotel was reopened as the Grand Hyatt New York. In 2019 it was announced that the building will be demolished, and the site redeveloped. After being expelled from the Biltmore Hotel during their honeymoon, the Fitzgeralds moved to the Commodore Hotel. However, not before long, they were also asked to leave this hotel after just a couple of days. The couple celebrated their eviction by spinning through the hotel’s revolving doors for half an hour.
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New York Public Library 476 Fifth Avenue (42nd St and Fifth Ave)
Fitzgerald is thought to have walked by the New York Public Library every now and then on his way to the Knickerbocker or Manhattan Hotel. At the library, one may request to view a telegram which Fitzgerald sent to a certain Madame Thrall, inviting her and her wards to join him for a cocktail. Bryant Park, the park behind the library, houses a statue of Gertrude Stein, whom Fitzgerald met in Paris. Stein famously compared Fitzgerald and Hemingway’s talent to flames - and thought Fitzgerald’s flame to be the brighter one.
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The Knickerbocker Hotel 142 West 42nd Street
Built in 1906, The Knickerbocker has a rich history as one of the most luxurious hotels in NYC. The Knickerbocker is situated at the Southeast corner of Broadway and 42nd Street in Times Square, Manhattan. Although only the facade of the original building remains nowadays, its location and appearance are still as inspiring as they were during the Jazz Age.
Known once as the 42nd Street Country Club, Fitzgerald made a name for himself at the Knick. One night, Fitzgerald left on the tap of his hotel room, as a result of which he flooded the hotel. The hotel’s website also pays respect to the author’s presence at the Knickerbocker. The likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald hobnobbed with opera stars, journalists and politicians, and it was here that John D. Rockefeller ordered the first-ever Martini.
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The Algonquin Hotel 59 West 44th Street
The Algonquin Hotel is located at 59 West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan. The Fitzgeralds were friends with the owner, and they stayed here several times. Fitzgerald also stayed here to recover after his disastrous trip to Cuba with Zelda in 1939. The Algonquin is famous as a meeting place for an influential group of writers and critics, the Algonquin Round Table. The group, also known as the Vicious Circle, was founded in 1919. One of the founding members was writer Dorothy Parker. Parker was a lifelong friend on Fitzgerald’s, and they both went on to work in Hollywood as screenwriters in the 1930s - Hollywood’s Golden Years.
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Ambassador Theatre 219 W 49th St
The Ambassador Theatre hosted a play of The Great Gatsby, dramatised by Owen Davis. The opening night was on 2 February 1926 - James Rennie played Jay Gatsby, and Florence Eldridge played Daisy Buchanan. Coinciding with the opening of the play, three speakeasies reportedly also opened on West 49th Street. The play was a great success all over the East Coast. Fitzgerald himself wrote the he was contented to see that the play was a success and also happy with the fact that it had earned him some $18,000.
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The Empire State Building 20 W 34th St
The Empire State Building, designed by Alfred W. Smith, was completed in 1931. Fitzgerald actually climbed to the roof of the building, as he records in “My Lost City”. Fitzgerald was not fond of its existence, mainly because it destroyed the dream of New York as an untouchable universe in-itself – it was just a city after all
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Union Square Intersection of Broadway and Fourth Avenue
Union Square is where Broadway and Fourth Avenue meet. Fitzgerald and Zelda were reported to have jumped into the fountain here - completely sober, and fully clothed.
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Greenwich Village
There are several places in Greenwich Village Fitzgerald and Zelda used to frequent. One of these places is 86 Bedford Street. This clandestine-looking door is the entrance to one of the most famous speakeasies during the time of Prohibition. It opened in 1926 and closed in 2007 after a fire, but opened its doors again in 2016. This place was a favourite spot for several authors, including Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The dĂŠcor is impeccable and true to its history. It looks just like it would have done when
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Steinbeck and Fitzgerald used the West Village haunt as their favourite watering hole. It is said that the expression ‘to 86 someone’ comes from Chumley’s, as the barman would warn the customers to exit through the door on 86 Bedford Street whilst the police would enter through a different door in Pamela Court. See also 113 MacDougal Street, between Bleecker and West 3rd. During the Prohibition era, this place used to be the spot where the Black Rabbit speakeasy stood. In 1937, it changed its name to the Minetta Tavern and attracted the likes of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dylan Thomas, E. E. Cummings and Ezra Pound. When the Fitzgeralds returned to New York in 1924, they often went to the Greenwich Village Follies at the Greenwich Village Theatre. Fitzgerald and Zelda, like true New York celebrities, were painted on the drop curtain.
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Washington Square Near Greenwich Village, at the end of Fifth Avenue
Washington Square is where Fitzgerald had tea on occasion with his Princeton friend, Edmund Wilson. Zelda created a painting of the square from memory in 1944, when Fitzgerald had already passed away, and shortly after their daughter Scottie got married. Zelda wrote to a friend that the painting brought back the excitement of those days twenty years ago when there was so much of everything adrift on the micaed spring time and so many aspirations aoat on the lethal twilights that one’s greatest concern was which taxi to take and which magazine to sell to. 36
Delmonico’s 56 Beaver St.
Delmonico’s is a renowned culinary institution and has been around since 1837. One of Fitzgerald’s most epic parties grew out of the interfraternity dance at Delmonico’s in May 1919. The morning after the party, they had a breakfast of shredded wheat and champagne. It was from here they carried the empty bottles out of the hotel and smashed them on the kerb, much to the horror of the churchgoers along Fifth Avenue.
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Queensboro Bridge Between 59th and 60th Street
In The Great Gatsby, Nick enters the city from the Queensboro Bridge and describes the sunlight through the girders and the city rising up like sugar lumps – a city full of promise where anything can happen.
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Long Island 6 Gateway Drive
This is where the Fitzgeralds lived during their Long Island layover between October 1922 and April 1924. 6 Gateway Drive, described by Zelda as their nifty-little Babbitt house, was notorious for its never-ending parties. It was also where Fitzgerald got his ideas for The Great Gatsby. The Fitzgeralds spent $36,000 during their first year on Great Neck, Long Island, due to their generally expensive domestic arrangement. If you want a taste of Fitzgerald’s exhilarating Long Island life, take the hour-long train from Penn Station to Great Neck station, then walk 10 minutes to 6 Gateway Drive
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WORKS CITED AND NOTES Brown, David S. Paradise Lost. A Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017. Bruccoli, Matthew J. ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald. A Life in Letters. Penguin Books, 1995. Cline, Sally. Zelda Fitzgerald. John Murray, 2002. Baughman, Judith, ed. “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Ledger 1919—1938”. University of South Carolina, 2002. Finkelstein, Elizabeth. “The Greenwich Village Follies.” West Village, 2011. https://gvshp.org/blog/2011/10/04/the-greenwich-village-follies/ Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “Basil: The Freshest Boy”. The Saturday Evening Post, 1928. http:// www.gutenberg.net.au/fsf/BASIL-THE-FRESHEST-BOY.html. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “My Lost City”. My Lost City Personal Essays, 19201940. Ed. James L.W. West, III. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005. 106-115. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925. Fitzgerald, F. Scott and Zelda. “Show Mr. and Mrs. F. to Number —“. http://fitzgerald.narod.ru/zelda/shownumber.html. Fitzgerald, Zelda. Save Me The Waltz. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932. Milford, Nancy. Zelda: A Biography. Harper Perennial, 2011. http://fitzgerald.narod.ru/zelda/milford- zelda04.html Mizener, Arthur. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Biographical and Critical Study. London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1958. Turnbull, Andrew. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Grove Press, 1962.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY This Side of Paradise, ed. James L. W. West III (1920; rep. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)] Flappers and Philosophers (1920; rep. London: Alma Classics, 2014) The Beautiful and Damned (1922; rep. London: Penguin, 1994) Tales of the Jazz Age (1922; rep. London: Penguin Classics, 2011) The Great Gatsby, ed. by Matthew Bruccoli (1925; rep. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991) All the Sad Young Men (1926; rep. London, Alma Classics, 2013) Tender Is the Night, ed. James L. W. West III (1934; rep. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) Taps at Reveille, ed. by James L. W. West III (1935; rep. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014) The Love of the Last Tycoon, ed. by Matthew Bruccoli (1941; rep. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014) The Crack-Up, ed. by Edmund Wilson (1945; rep. New York, NY: New Directions Books, 2009) The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald, ed. by Andrew Turnbull (London: The Bodley Head, 1963)
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Written by: Frances O’Neill and David A Rennie Illustrations by: Agata Urbanska and Beatriz Rodriguez Porrero Designed by: Laura Craig A Global Trails production. www.walkingwithwriters.com francesoneill@me.com