The Century Association (New York City, New York)

 arts, clubhouse

4-story Italian Renaissance-revival club building completed in 1891. Designed by McKim, Mead & White, it replaced the Century Club's former, smaller quarters on 15th Street. The Century Association is a private club in New York City. It evolved out of an earlier organization – the Sketch Club, founded in 1829 by editor and poet William Cullen Bryant and his friends – and was established in 1847 by Bryant and others as a club to promote interest in the fine arts and literature which was open to "Artists, Literary Men, Scientists, Physicians, Officers of the Army and Navy, members of the Bench and Bar, Engineers, Clergymen, Representatives of the Press, Merchants and men of leisure."

It was originally intended to have a limited membership of 100 men. Its early members included Bryant, painters Asher Durand, Winslow Homer, and John Frederick Kensett, architect Stanford White (who designed the 43rd Street building), judge Charles Patrick Daly , author Lewis Gaylord Clark and architect Calvert Vaux,the co-creator with Frederick Law Olmsted of Central Park. However, by the middle 1850s, the membership primarily consisted of merchants, businessmen, lawyers and doctors. When the club moved from 15th Street to its new clubhouse on 43rd Street, it had about 800 members. In 1989, after a strenuous legal battle, the club was compelled to start admitting women members.

The 43rd Street clubhouse is clad in granite, terra-cotta and brick. It has a 2-story rusticated base (with narrower rustications on the 2nd floor), divided into five main bays. There is a rather high water table at the ground floor, and small, recessed service entrances at the far ends. The outer bays have square windows with white iron grilles, but the facade is dominated by the 2-story round-arched entrance in the center bay. This bay projects forward, and the archway frames a recessed set of wooden double-doors and an arched window above. Decorative iron scrollwork, from which a hanging lantern is suspended, fronts the window at the 2nd floor. The arch has a scrolled keystone with a cartouche that is centered on an intricate frieze and egg-and-dart molding running across the top of the base. The other bays at the 2nd floor have square-headed double-windows with transoms, topped by splayed lintels that touch the bottom of the crowning frieze. Flanking the outer bays are two pairs of narrow rectangular openings fronted by ornamental white iron scrollwork.

The 3rd floor has a balcony with wrought-iron railings at the projecting center bay, to which is affixed a pair of projecting flagpoles. Behind the balcony is a grand Palladian window, with the side panes framed by patterned pilasters at the outer edges and round columns at the inner edges, each topped by a small Corinthian capital. An elaborate entablature tops each side pane, with the larger central pane culminating in a round-arch with elaborately carved moldings, and a lion's head at the keystone. Garlands flank the arched-window and additional carvings flank the twin plaques above the entablatures. Crowning the Palladian ensemble is a panel with Roman numerals of the date MDCCCLXXXIX (1889).

To either side, 2-story fluted pilasters with Corinthian capitals frame each bay. The 3rd floor has windows like those on the 2nd floor, but framed by smaller patterned pilasters and topped by entablatures with wreaths, egg-and-dart moldings and cornices. Above each of these is a wreathed round window at the 4th floor. The entire facade is crowned by an elaborate cornice and balustrade featuring an urn at the center.

www.thecentury.org/
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