Knickerbocker Club
The Knickerbocker Club is a private male-only social club in New York City.
The club was founded on the evening of October 31, 1871 by 18 members of the Union Club of the City of New York. Early meetings were held at Delmonico's in White Tie until the first clubhouse opened on February 2, 1872, a few blocks from Delmonico's and Union Square.
The club's present clubhouse is located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 62nd Street in New York City. Built in 1913, it was opened June 21, 1915. It was designed by William Adams Delano of the architectural firm of Delano & Aldrich.
- Formation of "The Knick"
The Union Club was known as particularly conservative. According to the historian John Steele Gordon, a member of the club, it did not expel its Confederate members during the Civil War years.
Some members took exception to this and withdrew to found the Union League Club, now at 38th and Park.
In the 1870s, other members, who thought the Union’s standards of admission had fallen, went off to form the Knickerbocker Club, now at 62nd and Fifth Avenue. The Brook and Metropolitan Clubs were also offshoots.
- Club information [1]
- By Carter B. Horsley
One of the city's most exclusive and prestigious private men's social clubs, the Knickerbocker was founded in 1871 when some members of the Union Club became concerned over a relaxation of admission policies at that club.
In 1913, the club commissioned this clubhouse from Delano & Aldrich. Its red-brick, Georgian-style design is very understated. While attractive in terms of color and scale, the building's exterior detailing is not extraordinary and a rooftop addition is rather ungainly. The interiors are handsome, but conservative and not exciting. The sidestreet entrance leads to a staircase up to the main floor on the second level. The club, which has high ceilings, is noted for its food.
A nice component of the design is the setback, walled garden on the avenue frontage. For many decades, this property was abutted to the south by another Georgian-style structure, the townhouse of Mrs. Marcellus H. Dodge, a dog fancier who kept a large garden surrounded by a wooden fence at the northeast corner of 61st Street and the avenue adjoining her midblock mansion that was sold in the 1970s and redeveloped as a luxury apartment building that was built flush on the avenue with a large midblock plaza.
In his fine book, "Touring The Upper East Side, Walks in Five Historic Districts", [2] Andrew S. Dolkart offers the following commentary about the club and its architects:
"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."
The same architectural firm designed the larger and more attractive Colony Club two blocks to the east at 564 Park Avenue, which was completed in 1916. It also designed the Union Club on Park Avenue at 69th Street.
References
- ↑ from http://www.thecityreview.com/ues/fifave/knicker.html
- ↑ (published by the New York Landmarks Conservancy, 1995),
External links
See also
- Gentlemen's club
- List of American gentlemen's clubs
- List of Australian gentlemen's clubs
- List of London's gentlemen's clubs
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