Knickerbocker Club
 | |
| Type | Gentlemen's club |
|---|---|
| Predecessor(s) | Union Club of the City of New York |
| Founded | 1871 |
| Headquarters |
2 East 62nd Street New York, NY United States |
The Knickerbocker Club (known informally as The Knick), is a gentlemen's club in New York City founded in 1871. Its current location, a neo-Georgian structure at 2 East 62nd Street, was commissioned in 1913. It was designed by William Adams Delano and Chester Holmes Aldrich.[1]
The Knick, like other clubs of its type, such as the Australian Club, Brooks's Club and the Turf Club in London, the Jockey Club of Paris, the Melbourne Club, the Kildare St & University Club and the Harmonie Club, has reciprocal arrangements with clubs around the world.[citation needed]
History
The Knick was founded in 1871 by members of the Union Club of the City of New York who were concerned that the club's admission standards had fallen.[1]
The name "Knickerbocker", mainly thanks to writer Washington Irving, was a byword for a New York patrician,[2] comparable to a "Boston Brahmin".[3]
By the 1950s, urban social club membership was dwindling, in large part because of the movement of wealthy families to the suburbs. In 1959, the Knickerbocker Club considered rejoining the Union Club, merging The Knick's 550 members with the Union Club's 900 men, but the plan never came to fruition.[1]
Notable members (past & present)
- Frederick Baldwin Adams (1878 – 1961), businessman and philanthropist
- H. Montagu Allan (1860–1951), banker, ship owner, lieutenant-colonel of the Canadian Expeditionary Force
- Chester Alan Arthur II (1864 – 1937), sportsman, art connoisseur, and son of President Chester A. Arthur
- John Lambert Cadwalader (1836 – 1914), lawyer, United States Assistant Secretary of State
- Finn M. W. Caspersen (1941 – 2009), attorney, corporate chief executive, philanthropist
- William A. Chanler (1867–1934), explorer, soldier and New York politician
- Henry Ives Cobb, Jr. (1883–1974), architect and artist
- Edgar G. Crossman (1895 – 1967), layer, soldier, diplomat
- Frank Crowninshield (1872–1947), journalist, developer of Vanity Fair
- H. B. Hollins (1854 – 1938), financier, banker
- Woodbury Kane (1859 – 1905), yachtsman, bon vivant
- Joseph Florimond Loubat (1831 – 1927), philanthropist
- Anthony Dryden Marshall (b. 1924), theatrical producer, former ambassador — current member
- Frederick Townsend Martin (1849–1914), writer and anti-poverty advocate
- Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), President of the United States (resigned from club in 1936)
- William Watts Sherman (1842 – 1912), businessman
- Raymond Vandenberg, lawyer — current member
- Craig Wadsworth (1872 – 1960), diplomat, steeplechase rider, and member of Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders
- James Montaudevert Waterbury, Sr. (1851 – 1931), businessman, industrialist
- Henry White (1850–1927), diplomat
- Robert Winthrop (1833–1892), banker
- James T. Woodward (1837 – 1910), banker
- Jerauld Wright (1898–1995), Navy Commander-in-Chief
See also
- List of American gentlemen's clubs
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Gray, Christopher. "Inside the Union Club, Jaws Drop", New York Times (Feb. 11, 2007).
- ↑ knickerbocker. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. retrieved 2008-1-3
- ↑ Frederic Cople Jaher, "Nineteenth-Century Elites in Boston and New York", Journal of Social History 6.1 (Autumn 1972), pp. 32-77.
External links
- Information about the building at TheCityReview.com
Coordinates: 40°45′57.23″N 73°58′17.28″W / 40.7658972°N 73.9714667°W