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CONNECTIONS
Each signature may be linked to the others by up to 53 thematic connections. Some are common to many signatures; others highlight unusual, yet notable, associations and interests. Friendships are not represented because so many signers were friends. Go to "The Bohemians" to view and interact with all 53 connections.
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THE DOOR
The 1920s was the age of the Algonquin Round Table, when a quick wit--the ability to turn a phrase under pressure--was a hot commodity. Some of the writers who signed the bookshop's door achieved the prize position of weekly columnist at one of New York's many newspapers, and were expected to fill their space with comic substance on a regular basis. Christopher Morley, in his Bowling Green column, achieved this in a manner quite different from his mentor Don Marquis. Other humorists on the door used the pen to create humor in images and text at once, creating cartoons in an age known for its remarkable cartooning. Some of the humor of the period translates magnificently to our own time, while some is opaque to modern ears and eyes, its cadences, vocabulary, and context impossible to reconstruct without great labor.
Harry Hansen's "Main Street" in the Greenwich Villager, 1921