HistoricSiteMarkers
Progressive & Modern Era

Harold Ross, Dorothy Parker, Harpo Marx, and George Gershwin

New York, New York, New York

Marker Inscription

Harold Ross 1892-1951 The magazine editor, who said "if you can't be funny, be interesting", lived here when he founded The New Yorker in 1925. At his 1923 "housewarming" were Dorothy Parker, Harpo Marx, and George Gershwin.

Erected by Historic Landmarks Preservation Center

The Story

In 1925, from a Manhattan address, a sharp-tongued editor launched a weekly magazine that would help define urban American wit for a century. Harold Ross gathered a circle of writers, humorists, and performers—among them Dorothy Parker, Harpo Marx, and George Gershwin—whose crackling repartee set the tone for The New Yorker. The magazine's blend of reporting, criticism, fiction, and cartoons became a national institution.

Why it matters

The founding of The New Yorker marked a turning point in American letters, giving the country a distinctive voice of sophisticated humor and long-form journalism.

The story behind this marker

AI context

The era

In the 1920s, New York was crackling with a new kind of American voice — quick, urbane, and funny. The city had become a magnet for writers, performers, and musicians, and a culture of wit was taking shape in its restaurants, theaters, and apartments. This was the world that would soon produce one of the country's most famous magazines.

Magazine publishing itself was booming. A growing, literate, city-dwelling public wanted something that reflected its own sophistication back to it — something clever, current, and unmistakably urban. The moment was ripe for a publication that could bottle that spirit.

The address marked here sat at the center of that ferment. It was the kind of place where the era's talkers and talents gathered, and where an ambitious editor could imagine a magazine that would speak in exactly their voice.

People & events

Harold Ross, who lived from 1892 to 1951, was that editor. He lived here when he founded The New Yorker in 1925, and he brought to it a famous editorial creed: if you can't be funny, be interesting. It's a line that still describes what good writing owes its reader.

The marker preserves a wonderful detail: at his 1923 housewarming were Dorothy Parker, Harpo Marx, and George Gershwin. Picture that room — a writer celebrated for her devastating wit, a performer whose silent comedy needed no words, and a composer bridging concert halls and popular song, all under one roof.

That gathering reads like a snapshot of the age's creative energy. These were people who worked in words, in comedy, and in music, and their easy company suggests just how tightly those worlds were woven together in the New York that gave rise to The New Yorker.

Its place in the American story

The founding of The New Yorker was a turning point in American letters. The magazine helped define a national style of sophisticated humor and long-form journalism, blending reporting, criticism, fiction, and cartoons into something that felt distinctly modern and distinctly urban.

It gave the country a particular voice — dry, precise, and knowing — that influenced how Americans wrote and what they laughed at for generations. An editor's insistence on being funny or, failing that, interesting turned out to be a durable standard.

That such an institution can be traced to a single Manhattan address, and to the circle of talents who passed through it, is a reminder that cultural landmarks are often born in living rooms before they reach newsstands and libraries across the nation.

If you visit

This is a home marker, so approach it as you would a stage where something began. There's no grand facade to a founding like this — just the knowledge that a magazine which shaped American humor and journalism took root behind an ordinary door.

Stand there and try to hear the 1923 housewarming: the overlap of a sharp-tongued writer, a comic performer, and a composer, the kind of evening where an idea can catch fire. The best literary landmarks reward a little imagination.

If you're exploring this part of Manhattan, let the stop set a theme for your walk — the city as the birthplace of a certain American wit. Read the inscription, look up at the building, and you'll never quite read the magazine the same way again.

Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.

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Related people

  • · Harold Ross
  • · Dorothy Parker
  • · Harpo Marx
  • · George Gershwin

Themes & tags

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