The National Arts Club (New York City, New York)

 museum, house, club, movie / film / TV location

15 Gramercy Park South
New York, NY 10003

www.nacnyc.org/
www.locationdepartment.net/locations/9019

5-story Victorian-Gothic club building originally completed as a pair of houses in 1845. No. 15 was first acquired by Samuel J. Tilden, followed by its neighbor at No. 14. Tilden rose to prominence for successful battling the political machine of Tammany Hall in city politics, and became Governor of New York in 1875. He ran for president in 1876, winning the popular vote, but losing the electoral college to Rutherford B. Hayes. He hired architect Calvert Vaux to combine the two houses into a single immense townhouse, from 1881-1884. Since 1906, it has served as the location of the private National Arts Club.

The National Arts Club was founded in 1898 by Charles DeKay, an art and literary critic of the New York Times, to "stimulate, foster, and promote public interest in the arts and to educate people in the fine arts". The club's first home was a brownstone on West 34th Street, but they soon outgrew the space.

The building's exterior is clad mainly in pink sandstone with ashlar finish. Pink marble is used in the entrance surrounds, and shiny multi-colored stone material studs some of the horizontal stringcourses, with radiating voussoirs around pointed-arch window openings. Segmental panels over many of the windows and in the wall are studded with little sculptured heads of literary figures, and at first-floor level, the head of Benjamin Franklin marks approximately the former division of townhouses. The façade is also encrusted with other carved portraits—Shakespeare, Dante, Benjamin Franklin, Milton and Goethe among them—and floral and geometric designs.

Each original house has a projecting bay extending from the basement through the 3rd floor. The bay of number 15 is 3-sided, while that of number 14 is rectangular. Vermiculated pink sandstone laid in coursed ashlar faces the basement and upper story walls, and the first story is laid basically in smooth ashlar. Decorative materials include a shiny obsidian-like stone, which studs the belt courses passing both over and under the windows. Pink marble decorations include colonettes at the basement windows and pilasters flanking the entrance to number 14. Apparently the door of number 14 resembles the original door of number 15, which the National Arts Club removed to create a new entrance. The stoop at number 14 repeats the building ornamentation in pink stone steps studded with obsidian-like blocks and flanked by a decorative solid stone and low bronze railing. A triangular pediment bearing a small sculptured head tops the decorated double door. Two double-hung, 2-over-2 windows divided by colonettes or pilasters appear at each level above each doorway. Bronze rails decorate the projecting bays and also form cresting above the 3rd floor. At the 4th story, a skylight replaces original windows above the projecting bay in number 15; number 14 has a small triangular parapet. A low pitched roof pierced by a central chimney tops the structure.

After acquiring the townhouse in 1906, the National Arts Club adjoined a 13-story studio building with a raised basement to the Tilden House rear. It faces 19th Street and stands on the site of Tilden's garden (see separate entry).

The interior of the club served as a filming location for S1E5 of the Amazon series "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" when Midge met Joel's parents.