The MacDowell Club of New York was one of many women's clubs by the same name around the country supporting the MacDowell Colony, the artists’ retreat in Peterborough, New Hampshire. The MacDowell Clubs around the country were part of a social movement to promote music and art in America.
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To promote the arts of music, literature and the drama, architecture, painting and sculpture, and the other fine arts; to encourage study, research and production of all branches of art; to develop a sympathetic understanding of their correlation and appreciation of their value; and to broaden their influence: and thus carry forward the life purpose of Edward MacDowell
Organized in 1905, the MacDowell Club was initially located at the old Metropolitan Opera House.
At the end of May 1911, the Club moved to a spacious building at 108 W 55th Street,[1] which featured a large vaulted gallery.[2]
In 1924 the MacDowell Club purchased the old converted Marquand stable — located at 166 East 73rd Street — from the Joseph Pulitzer estate. Richard Morris Hunt had designed the original building for art collector Henry Gurdon Marquand in 1883. Shortly after Marquard's death, the building was sold to Joseph Pulitzer, then publisher of the New York World, who lived several blocks to the east at 73rd and Park. A fire swept the building in 1935 and destroyed prints by Whistler, Hassam and others.[3]
In 1979, the Landmarks Preservation Commission proposed 12 of the 13 stable and garage buildings on the block for designation, excluding the Marquand building. A year later Halina Rosenthal, head of the block association and later founder of the Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, lobbied the commission to include the Marquand stable in the designation, which it did in 1981.
The MacDowell Chorus formed in November 1909, under the direction of Kurt Schindler. Two months after its founding, Gustav Mahler, then the conductor of The New York Philharmonic Orchestra, invited the chorus to perform with the orchestra.[4] In 1912, Schindler changed the name to "Schola Cantorum." Schindler continued to conduct the Schola until January 1926, when he accepted an offer to take charge of the Roxy Theatre. Hugh Ross later became the director of the Schola.