But the blandness shouldn’t come as a surprise. The contemporary Allen Room is a startlingly bland space, with a few shelves of reference material ( 1999 World Almanac Notable American Women: The Modern Period) and a north-facing view of the Jamba Juice storefront on 42nd. She does allow that the original Allen Room, a gloomy first-floor den, was “looser.” “None of the usual rules applied,” she said, refusing to elaborate. Jacoby doesn’t blink when a calypso ring tone punctures the silence.

But anyway, here I’m not tempted to go online and watch Sarah Palin cut the head off a turkey.” Although the rules ban food, water and cell phones, Ms. “Going on the Internet when you’re stuck is about as valuable as eating ice cream from the fridge when you’re stuck,” she told the Transom. Susan Jacoby, an emeritus who has written six books in the Allen Room over the past 30 years, describes the room as a place whose primary virtue isn’t its roster of literary celebrities (including Robert Hughes and Mike Wallace, both of whom still drop by), but rather its lack of Wi-Fi. When the Transom stopped by last week for a tour, any remaining visions of shifty-eyed cronyism evaporated upon our admittance into the modest, sunny room. “We don’t want to create obstructions,” he explained.

Although there are only nine cubicles, Allen Room liaison Jay Barksdale told the Transom that 40 to 50 people hold key cards at any one time, and if a term of access officially ends after one year, many people request (and receive) extensions. Lamster is the creator of the “I Wrote My Book in the Allen Room” Facebook group, of which there are 24 members.ĭespite the room’s privileged aura, gaining entrance is a fairly simple operation. Recent alum Mark Lamster, a historian who wrote Master of Shadows: The Secret Diplomatic Career of the Painter Peter Paul Rubens in an Allen Room cubicle, describes the book-contract clause as a “healthy barrier” to a room with “an exclusive air.” Mr. Betty Friedan, who wrote a portion of The Feminine Mystique in the room, was known to drive people nuts with her noise. In a 1971 essay for New York, Avery Corman described the Allen Room as “elite stuff,” a place where “Saul Bellow probably couldn’t get in.” Six years later, Noemie Emery spun an Allen Room tale of sex and insanity for Publisher’s Weekly, counting among the room’s residents a German countess who wrote of her helicopter rescue from an asylum and the granddaughter of a famous psychiatrist who spent her library hours investigating lesbian witches in Staten Island. There is nothing like a locked door to stoke curiosity.

Frederick lewis allen books