The Algonquin Kid - Adventures Growing Up at New York's Legendary Hotel (audiobook)

Read by the author, Michael Elihu Colby.

The true life story of Michael Elihu Colby and his childhood days at Manhattan’s Algonquin Hotel.  His grandparents Mary and Ben B. Bodne had traded their southern oil fortune for the legendary but faded Algonquin and restored the hotel’s former glory. Their efforts led to a remarkable renaissance and attracted an overflow of celebrities from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Michael weaves a vivid tapestry of encounters with glittering Broadway and Hollywood celebrities in a kaleidoscopic memoir of  illustrious figures—some on a meteoric rise, some in tragic decline—while he found his own place in the topsy turvy world of the Broadway theatre and musicals. Nearly 200 rare photographs and illustrations, a Bibliography, Appendixes, and an Index.

Listen to chapter 1 of the audiobook here for Free. 

It is such a fun and enriching experience reading The Algonquin Kid.  I love the way Michael assembled the stories and shared his own creativity and talent along the way. He has preserved an important part of history which deeply resonated with me. (And I would have felt that way even if I weren’t in the book).  So much of that era has passed and it only lives again when someone takes the time to save it, like Michael.
 
- Michael Feinstein

Theater Pizzazz

https://www.broadwayworld.com/off-broadway/article/Joe-Iconis-and-More-to-be-Honored-at-at-Urban-Stages-Gala-20250430