| Top Ten NYC Architecture |
top ten New York Clubs |
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For a more complete list, see
Club |
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| 1 |
Union Club |
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Andrew S. Dolkart, "Touring the Upper East
Side, Walks in Five Historic Districts" (The New York Landmarks Conservancy,
1995),
"the dull, somewhat overblown exterior is designed in an English Renaissance
manner that alludes to the gentlemen's clubs of London, but lacks the finesse of
the clubs on Pall Mall." Such an assessment may be right about finesse, but is a
bit harsh as Delano & Aldrich's design is very elegant and very refined. |
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| 2 |
Metropolitan Club |
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Fifth Avenue and its environs are dotted with
the (traditionally men's) clubs which serviced, and still cater to, its mainly
wealthy population. When J.P. Morgan, William and Cornelius Vanderbilt,
and their pals arrived on the social scene in the 1890s, established society
still looked askance at bankers and financiers, and its Downtown clubs were
closed to Morgan and anyone else it considered less than up to snuff. Never to
be slighted or outdone, Morgan commissioned Stanford White to design him his own
club, bigger, better and grander than all the rest – and so the Metropolitan
Club at 1 East 60th St was born, an exuberant confection with a marvelously
outrageous gateway. Just the thing for arriving robber barons.
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| 3 |
University Club |
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architect
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Charles Follen McKim of
McKim, Mead and White |
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location
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One W54, at Fifth Ave. |
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date
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1900 |
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style
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Renaissance Revival the city's finest Italian Renaissance palazzo-style
structure
"elements from the Palazzo Spannochi, Siena, and the Palazzo Albergati,
Bologna, are freely quoted" Leland Roth
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construction
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masonry bearing walls, steel spans, conc
"not limestone, as you might think, but pink Milford granite from
Maine.There is a slight batter, or receding upward slope to the walls,
adding to its austere majesty." John Tauranac |
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type
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Club |
The plan was organized around an enclosed
cortille that received different treatment on alternating floors, beginning as a
full colonnade on the first floor, becoming a three-sided colonnade on the
second floor and shrinking to four piers on the third floor....The centerpiece
of the design, appropriate for a club of learning, is the library on the second
floor, and here no expense was spared. In a long, barrel-vaulted room with
cross-groin vaults, ...supposedly Le Corbusier on a visit in 1935 declared he
could understand how one would become a Beaux-Arts architect, or as he wrote:
'In New York, then, I learn to appreciate the Italian Renaissance. It is so well
done that you could not believe it to be genuine. It even has a strange new
firmness which is not Italian, but American.' |
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New York Yacht Club |
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In 1898, the NYYC was billeted on the second
floor of a house on Madison Avenue. It was chockablock with "models, members and
memorabilia," wrote the New York Daily Tribune. It was then that
Commodore J. Pierpont Morgan stunned fellow members by announcing he would
donate three lots on West 44th Street to build a new clubhouse. The building,
designed in the beaux-arts style by Whitney Warren and Charles D. Wetmore,
opened in 1901. It is known for its Model Room and Library. The clubhouse is 103
years old. "Except for the absence of motion, one might fancy oneself at sea,"
is how the New York Times described it in 1906. |
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| 5 |
Harvard Club |
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architect
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Charles F. McKim of
McKim, Mead and White |
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location
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27 W44, bet. Fifth and Sixth Aves. |
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date
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1894, enlarged in 1905, 1915, 1946 and
2003. |
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style
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Neo-Georgian
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construction
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brick, stone trim |
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type
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Club |
In 1894, the Harvard Club had the small
clubhouse designed by Charles F. McKim of the firm McKim, Mead, and White
constructed on the recently acquired property at 27 and 29 West 44th Street.
This area of town was quickly becoming a center for clubhouses. In just a few
years, the New York Yacht Club, the Century Club, The Yale Club and others also
were built in the neighborhood. The Clubhouse was small compared to its
neighbors, filling only the front half of the two 25-by-100-foot lots. It was a
three-story Neo-Georgian structure that included a kitchen in the cellar, a
dining room on the first floor, and meeting rooms on the second and third
floors.
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New York Athletic Club
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The New York Athletic Club was founded in
1868 by Henry Buermeyer, John Babcock and William Curtis. All were accomplished
athletes with a singular commitment to the growth and development of amateur
sport in the United States. Furthermore, they possessed the foresight to realize
that the time was right to introduce some organization - and uniformity of
measurement - into sporting endeavors across the country, if not around the
world. So, on September 8th of that year, Buermeyer, Curtis and Babcock, with 11
other similarly inclined sportsmen, gathered in a Manhattan tavern known as the
Knickerbocker Cottage for the first meeting of what would become the NYAC. |
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| 7 |
Racquet and Tennis Club |
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Designed as a Renaissance Revival building,
architects McKim, Mead and White used a style -- based on the Italian palazzo --
that was popular for men's clubs in England ever since it was imported to the
United States in the 19th century. An early example of this style is India House
(the former Hanover Bank) located at Hanover Square. In the early 20th century,
this style continued to be popular with fashionable patrons. Unlike Richard
Carman, the architect/builder of India House, these architects had studied in
Europe and had a better understanding of Renaissance proportions and details. In
response to its site, the height of the club was made exactly two times greater
than the width of Park Avenue. It was completed soon after the construction of
Grand Central Terminal and catered to the residents of fashionable apartment
buildings that lined Park Avenue in the early 20th century. McKim, Mead and
White also designed two other men's clubs, the Metropolitan Club and the
University Club, that were considered New York's most prestigious private clubs
in their day. |
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| 8 |
The Montauk Club |
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architect
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Francis H. Kimball |
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location
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25 Eighth Avenue. NE cor. Lincoln Place. 1889-1891. |
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date
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1891 |
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style
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Venetian Gothic |
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type
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Club |
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construction
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Brownstone, brick, terra-cotta,
and verdigris copper. |
A
Venetian Gothic palazzo, whose canal is the narrow lawn separating it from its
cast-iron fence. Remember the Ca d’Oro. But here in brownstone, brick,
terra-cotta, and verdigris copper. It bears the name of a local tribe, which
explains the 8th Avenue friezes at the 3rd and 4th stories, honoring these
former local natives.
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| 9 |
Knickerbocker Club |
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This firm often combined historic American Colonial
and English Neo-classical forms, creating deceptively simple buildings, as which
the Knickerbocker is an early masterpiece. The flat rectilinear wall planes of
brick laid in Flemish bond are punctuated by large multi-paned windows and
enriched with the subtlest of ornament. A meticulous restoration was completed
in 1992. |
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| 10 |
Century Association |
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Built in 1869 for the Century Association, an
elite club founded by William Cullen Bryant and named for its 100 members. Noted
architect H.H. Richardson had at least some input into the design, making this
his only Manhattan building--albeit not a terribly exciting one.
New York City's 's Century Association, founded in 1846 by painters Asher
B. Durand and John F. Kenesett, poet William Cullen Bryant, and others, is
incorporated March 7th 1857 by a special act of the state legislature.
In 1997, it became the Century Center for the Performing Arts. It enjoyed
enormous success with the Pulitzer-winning drama How I Learned to Drive. The
theater is beautifully sculptured and has a wonderfully intimate feel. The house
has a seating capacity of 299. |
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