Yale Club of New York City (New York City, New York)

 university, club, Classicism, interesting place, historic landmark, Renaissance Revival (architecture)

262-foot, 22-story Neo-classical clubhouse completed in 1915 by Marc Eidlitz & Sons for the Yale Alumni Association. Designed by James Gamble Rogers, the base of the tripartite clubhouse is faced with rusticated Indiana limestone, the middle floors are tan face brick and the uppermost floors--where the main dining room is located--are glazed terra-cotta. To make certain that the design would blend into the terminal city, Rogers consulted regularly with the Wetmore firm of Grand Central to choose complementary materials and ornament. Above the 2nd floor, it has an L-shaped footprint, with a light court in the northwest corner. The west facade, partly visible from Madison Avenue and East 44th Street, has no windows. The light court is not visible from the street. Rogers may have drawn his inspiration from the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne in Rome, by architect-painter Baldassarre Peruzzi, which shares similar stonework and fenestration. The location was chosen to be steps from the trains that serve New Haven, where Yale University is located, and to serve as a gateway to the social club district which propagated on 44th Street.

The club’s primary facade faces Vanderbilt Avenue. It has a symmetrical arrangement, with the main entrance covered by a glass awning with copper trim. On either side are small windows with stone surrounds and iron grilles. The 2nd floor, containing the main lounge, has seven bays with large, deeply-recessed, round-arched windows with planter boxes at their bases. Above the center window, aligned with the entrance, is a cartouche inscribed with the university logo, a book with Hebrew words. Between the 2nd and 3rd floors is a simple cornice engraved with the school motto, a Latin phrase, LVX ET VERITAS, translated as truth and light. The 3rd, 4th & 5th floors have triple-height pilasters that alternate with rectangular windows, with balustrades at the 3rd floor and metal balconies that curve outward at the 4th. There is no rustication on the smaller windows of the 5th floor. The 6th floor has very small window openings, each flanked by triglyphs.

A projecting stone cornice, with denticulated moldings and lion heads at the far ends, divides the base from the middle floors, which are brick and have regular brick quoins at the ends. To connect these floors visually to the base, the lowest windows display slightly more ornament, including more elaborate surrounds, rectangular relief panels, and pediments. There is a projecting stone balcony across the three middle bays at the 19th floor, and smaller balconies at the next bay on each side. In contrast to the unassuming treatment of the middle floors, the top is richly decorated with glazed terra-cotta. Crowned by a substantial copper cornice, the top floor, where the main dining room is situated, has arched windows and fluted Corinthian columns.

The south facade on 44th Street has a matching design, but only six bays across. On the ground floor it also has metal-and-glass storefronts, and at the west end, the club’s service entrance. The storefronts are occupied by a FedEx Office Ship Center, Alex's Shoe Repair, and The Shirt Store.

The Yale Club of New York City, with 11,000 members, is unquestionably the largest private club in the world. The clubhouse contains three dining rooms (a grill room, a tap room, and a roof dining room and terrace), two bars (the grill room and the main lounge), banquet rooms for up to 500 people, 140 guestrooms, a library, an athletic center, and a barber shop, among other amenities. Administrative offices are located on the 7th floor. The heart of the clubhouse is the main lounge, a large room with a high, ornate ceiling and wood-paneled walls lined with fireplaces and portraits of the five Yale-educated United States presidents, all of whom are or were members of the Yale Club: Taft, Ford, Bush, Clinton, and G.W. Bush. Outside the lounge above the main staircase hangs a posthumous portrait of Elihu Yale by Francis Edwin Elwell. The tap room features murals by Thomas Rathbone Manley. Furniture was generally sourced through W. & K. Sloane with lighting by E.F. Caldwell.

The Yale Club of New York presently has more than 11,000 members. Mostly Yale graduates, it also welcomes alumni from Dartmouth College (since 1974) and the University of Virginia (since 1995), as well as members of the Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity (since 1932). The Wings Club of New York is also in-residence.

The building was designated as a New York City landmark in 2016. Its interior has had sympathetic renovations over the years by Bentel & Bentel Architects and Voith & Mactavish Architects. The lounge was recently decorated by Celerie Kemble.

www.yaleclubnyc.org/
s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/2579.pdf
yalealumnimagazine.org/articles/4111-the-skyscraper-clu...
archive.org/details/sim_architectural-record_1915-09_38...
babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015059445117&v...
archive.org/details/cu31924015354156/page/n87/mode/1up
www.urbanarchive.org/sites/5CgxsezRcYD
yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/4111-the-skyscraper-clu...
www.kembleinteriors.com/portfolio