New York City's eight best literary venues

From The Chelsea Hotel to The Algonquin to Albertine, NYC is full of famous literary hubs that have shaped the city's culture. Follow this guide to experience eight of the very best.

New York City has been the US' undisputed literary capital since the days when Herman Melville and Edith Wharton were scribbling away. In the generations since, the city has steadily lured wordsmiths from around the world seeking inspiration amid the city's "high growths of iron... splendidly uprising toward clear skies", as local boy Walt Whitman rhapsodised in his 1860 poem Mannahatta.

Today, New York City is still the powerhouse of the US publishing industry and is arguably home to the greatest concentration of writers on the planet. Far from being reclusive, the city's scribes tend to be an uproariously social and hedonistic bunch. As a result, many of the most cherished literary shrines, bookstores, bars, restaurants, hotels and clubs from the past continue to thrive today, attracting fresh armies of bohemians to share editorial war stories, celebrate their victories and (often enough) drown their sorrows.

All this is good news for bibliophile travellers eager to explore New York's ever-morphing literary landscape. The main challenge is that any survey must be shamelessly opinionated. And so, for my money, the key "must-sees" are as follows:

1. The Hotel Chelsea

The reopening of "The Chelsea" in 2022 after an 11-year renovation is a boon for fans of New York literary history. In fact, when it comes to famous writers, the question is: Who didn't stay in the distinctive red-brick Victorian edifice looming over 23rd Street in Manhattan? Mark Twain held forth here soon after it opened its doors in 1884, but it hit its stride as a cheap writer's refuge in the mid-20th Century, becoming the temporary home of Arthur Miller (who moved here after separating from Marilyn Monroe); Simone de Beauvoir; Dylan Thomas (who went into a whiskey-induced coma here; see stop #8 below); Tennessee Williams; Jack Kerouac (who had a one-night stand with Gore Vidal here) and Arthur C Clarke, amongst countless others. 

In the 1960s, the hotel became famous for the cast of young poet-musicians who took up residence here, including Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell and Patti Smith. 

Today, the renovated Chelsea is something of a self-contained bohemian entertainment complex, worth planning an evening around even if you can't afford to stay. Start with delicious sangria, papas bravas and "shrimp in green sauce" beneath the Cervantes-themed murals at the hotel's beloved Spanish restaurant El Quijote, then head for martinis at the softly lit Lobby Bar. Sitting at the splendid Old World wooden counter beneath chandeliers and mirrors is still a marvellous experience, even though each cocktail might cost more than a week's rent back in the glory days.

Website: www.hotelchelsea.com

Neighbourhood: Chelsea

Address: 222 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10011

Phone number: +1-212-483-1010

Instagram: @hotelchelsea

2. KGB Bar and Red Room

Don't be put off by the cheeky name: KGB actually stands for Krayne Gallery Bar, and the building started life back in the 1880s as a Ukrainian Socialist Club in the heart of the East Village's "Little Ukraine" community. Its literary pedigree dates to the 1960s, when Beat poets and writers gave readings in the ground-floor theatre, but kicked into high gear after 1993 when it was purchased by lawyer and author Denis Woycuk. The venue soon became the reading venue of choice for downtown literati, luring everyone from creative writing students at nearby New York University to Jonathan Franzen, Joyce Carol Oates, David Foster Wallace, Elizabeth Gilbert and Anthony Bourdain.

There is an active theatre on the ground floor and almost-nightly literary events (poetry readings, book parties, storytelling events and open-mic nights) on the first-floor bar and the glamorous top-floor Art Deco speakeasy, The Red Room. The latter is where (full disclosure!) I now host The Last Taboos monthly salon with literary guests who have included David Grann, Paul Theroux, Abbott Kahler and Debbie Applegate. The owner, Woycuk, who can usually be found there cradling a gin fizz, is still the only bar owner to ever be nominated for a Publisher's Weekly Star Award for promoting writers. 

Website: www.kgbbar.com

Neighbourhood: East Village

Address: 85 East 4th Street New York, NY 10003

Phone number: +1-212-505-3360

Instagram: @kgblitjournal and @kgbbarredroom

3. Black Spring Books

If any New York City bookstore could double as a speakeasy, it would be Black Spring Books, hidden on a quiet block in Williamsburg with only a stencilled name on the metal door to give away its location. Here, literary symmetries abound: it sits next to the childhood home of Henry Miller, who lived there from 1891 to 1901, when the neighbourhood was a feisty working-class community of Italian, Irish, German and Polish immigrants. Although Miller became notorious for his louche Parisian classic Tropic of Cancer published in 1934, the bookstore takes its named from his 1936 collection of autobiographical short stories Black Spring, many of which are about growing up in these once-wild streets.

Today, in a homage to Miller, its shelves are stacked with the work of young and emerging authors and books from small, offbeat presses, as well as the latest underground literary magazines. Defying the trend of recent bookstore closures in the city, Black Spring was opened during the depths of the pandemic in 2021 by Simona Blat, who – in another symmetry – was for many years assistant to the late Michael Seidenberg at the legendary Brazenhead, a speakeasy-style bookstore-within-an-apartment on the Upper East Side. Though now closed, Brazenhead's tradition of raucous wine-fuelled gatherings is a centrepiece of Black Spring's appeal, turning it into a social hub for the Brooklyn literary community today. They are all free and open to the public – check the website for the schedule.

Website: www.blackspringbookstore.com

Neighbourhood: Williamsburg

Address: 672 Driggs Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Instagram: @blackspringbooks

4. The Algonquin Hotel

Although it has endured various transformations over the last century, no tour of literary New York would be complete without sipping a cocktail at the Algonquin Hotel in the heart of Midtown near Times Square. The hotel became inseparable from the city's Jazz Age literary mythology in 1919, when a group of sharp-tongued writers including Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott and Harpo Marx agreed to meet there for boozy luncheons six days a week in an informal literary club, calling themselves the Round Table (today the name of the hotel restaurant), where they traded bon mots that are still repeated by irers. (For example, from Benchley: "Why don't you get out of that wet coat and into a dry martini">window._taboola = window._taboola || []; _taboola.push({ mode: 'alternating-thumbnails-a', container: 'taboola-below-article', placement: 'Below Article', target_type: 'mix' });