Al Hirschfeld, the Algonquin, & Why I Moved to New York City
Hunting for NINAs at the home of the roundtable.
September 10, 2025
Midtown, New York
Tonight, I was invited to the Al Hirschfeld reception at the Algonquin Hotel, home of the famous Algonquin Round Table. We were celebrating both the new poster book about Hirschfeld’s work on Sondheim shows and the collection of his iconic work. This is the first NYC gallery showing of Al Hirschfeld’s work in over a decade.
I grew up poring over Hirschfeld’s work, tracing his lines with my eyes, learning how much you can do by leaving most of it out. To stand in the Algonquin, where he once drew his peers, and be surrounded by his work alongside people I know—it reminds me this is exactly why I moved here. To be around it, learn from it, absorb it, and (hopefully) get better.
Declared a Living Landmark in 1996 and a Living Legend by the Library of Congress in 2000, Al Hirschfeld’s work has appeared in every major publication of the last 9 decades, including his 75 years in the New York Times. He was undeniably the greatest caricaturist New York has ever produced (even if he didn’t consider himself one… He called himself a characterist, which isn’t a word.)
But I digress. Here was a man who could make an entire performance materialise with a single swoopy line, scratched out laboriously from the sublime comfort of an old Koken barber’s chair.
As the throng of collectors and donors shmoozed and kibitzed, David Leopold, the Hirschfeld Foundation’s creative director, spoke with his usual mix of scholarship and showmanship. He’s the keeper of the archive, the guy who knows where all the NINAs are hidden.
I, meanwhile, was quietly bleeding in the corner. Somewhere while walking the three avenues from my apartment, I’d manage to jab myself with a golf pencil I’d stuffed in my pocket. I walked the Oak Room sucking my bleeding thumb like a child, trying to look like someone who belonged at an art opening while also staunching the world’s most persistent paper-cut. In my Larry David version of events, the blood would have landed on a priceless original Hirschfeld. Luckily, it just smeared on my copy of the new book (cover below).
I ran into Charlie Kochman, editor-in-chief of Abrams ComicArts—the publisher behind Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and the very book that was being launched tonight. We caught up before he bumped into his childhood friend, John Leguizamo, who was holding court like only John Leguizamo can. It was one of those surreal New York nights where you realise you’ve accidentally wandered into someone else’s anecdote.
