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The Yale Club of New York City

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The Yale Club of New York City
Company typePrivate club
FoundedNew York City, New York, 1897
HeadquartersNew York City, New York
Websitewww.yaleclubnyc.org

The Yale Club of New York City, commonly called the Yale Club, is a prominent private club in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. Its membership is restricted almost entirely to alumni and faculty of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

Clubhouse

The Yale Club's main entrance on Vanderbilt Avenue.

The club is located at 50 Vanderbilt Avenue, at the intersection of East 44th Street,[1] across Vanderbilt Avenue from Grand Central Terminal and the MetLife Building. Four other clubs affiliated with Ivy League universities have clubhouses in the surrounding neighborhood: the Harvard Club of New York, the Princeton Club of New York (which also houses the Columbia University Club of New York), the Penn Club of New York City, and the Cornell Club (which includes the Brown Club).[2] The neighborhood also includes similar clubs not affiliated with universities, like the New York Yacht Club and the University Club of New York,[2] as well as the flagship stores of Brooks Brothers, J. Press, and Paul Stuart, which traditionally catered to the club set.[3]

The 22-story clubhouse contains three dining rooms (a grill room, a tap room, and a roof dining room and terrace), two bars (the grill room and the main lounge), banquet rooms for up to 500 people, 140 guestrooms, a library, an athletic center, and a barber shop, among other amenities.[4][5] The heart of the clubhouse is the main lounge, a large room with a high, ornate ceiling and wood-paneled walls lined with fireplaces and portraits of the five Yale-educated American presidents, all of whom are or were members of the Yale Club: William Howard Taft; Gerald R. Ford; George H.W. Bush; William Jefferson Clinton; and George W. Bush.[6] Outside the lounge above the main staircase hangs a posthumous portrait of Elihu Yale by Francis Edwin Elwell.

History

The roots of the club reach back to 1868 and the foundation of the Old Yale Alumni Association of New York. In response to the association's desire for a permanent clubhouse, it formally established the Yale Club in 1897. One of the incorporators was Senator Chauncey Depew. The first president of the Yale Club was attorney Thomas Thacher, founder of Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett. The first clubhouse was a rented brownstone at 17 East 26th Street.[4] Thereafter, in 1901, the club built and opened a new, twelve-story clubhouse at 30 West 44th Street,[4] which today is home to the Penn Club of New York.[2]

The current clubhouse opened in June of 1915, designed by architect and Yale alumnus James Gamble Rogers.[1] It purposely was situated on the very corner where Yale alumnus Nathan Hale was hanged by the British Army for espionage during the American Revolution.[7] Today, the site of Hale's execution is disputed.[7]

Membership

Today, membership is restricted to alumni, faculty, and full-time graduate students of Yale University.[8] The club also offers legacy memberships for any Yale-affiliated member's children and grandchildren. The club sends out a monthly newsletter to all members.

Yale College did not admit women until 1969, so until then the Yale Club restricted its membership to men.[9] Wives even had to enter the club through a separate entrance (today the service entrance), and were not allowed to have access to much of the clubhouse.[10] Once Yale opened to women, however, the club quickly followed suit on July 30, 1969,[10] although the club did not open its bar, dining room, or athletic facilities to women until 1974[11] and did not open its swimming pool (known as "the plunge") to women until 1987.[12] Now, though, women constitute a large percentage of the club's membership.

Three other, smaller clubs also are in residence at the Yale Club: the Dartmouth Club, the Virginia Club, and the Delta Kappa Epsilon Club. Members of these other clubs have the same access to the clubhouse and its facilities as members of the Yale Club itself.

According to a book published for the club's 1997 centennial, members at that time included George H. W. Bush, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bill Clinton, Gerald Ford, John Kerry and George Pataki. Among others were architect Cesar Pelli and author David McCullough. Today, the Yale Club has over 10,000 members worldwide.[4]

Recent events

Heisman Trophy which was awarded to USC Trojans quarterback Carson Palmer at the Yale Club in 2002.

Dress code

In July of 1999, the Yale Club became the first of New York's Ivy League university clubs to change its dress code to business casual, a move which upset some members and was received with polite scorn from other clubs.[13] Today, the dress code remains business casual, except in the roof dining room, where formal business attire is required, and in the athletic facilities.[14]

Heisman Trophy

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Heisman Trophy, traditionally presented at the Downtown Athletic Club, was presented at the Yale Club in 2002 and 2003.[15][16] The 2002 winner was quarterback Carson Palmer of the USC Trojans, and the 2003 winner was quarterback Jason White of the University of Oklahoma Sooners. Before the two Heisman Trophy ceremonies, the un-awarded trophy itself was displayed in the Yale Club's lobby, flanked by portraits of the Yale's two Heisman winners, end Larry Kelley (1936) and halfback Clint Frank (1937).

Smoking ban

New York City's smoking ban, which went into effect in March of 2003, included a ban on smoking in private clubs. The Yale Club always had allowed smoking in many of its spaces and publicly opposed the ban; when the ban did take effect, however, the club reluctantly enforced it, and today the outdoor section of its roof dining room is the only open space in any of New York's Ivy League clubs where smoking is permitted.[17]

Bork lawsuit

On June 6, 2007, former United States Solicitor General and onetime Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork filed suit in federal court in New York City against the club over an incident that had occurred a year earlier. Bork alleged that, while trying to reach the dais to speak at an event for The New Criterion magazine, he suffered a fall due to the Yale Club's failure to provide any steps or handrail between the floor and the dais.[18] According to the complaint, Bork's injuries required surgery, immobilized him for months, forced him to use a cane, and left him with a limp.[19] Bork's lawsuit has been criticized as hypocritical, given his public stances on tort reform and the propriety of personal injury suits.[20] In May, 2008, Bork and the Yale Club reached a confidential, out-of-court settlement.[21]

  • In the novel American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis, Patrick Bateman gets up to use the restroom during lunch at the Yale Club, where to his chagrin he discovers that his coworker Luis Carruthers is in love with him. The chapter is titled "Yale Club".
  • The NBC television series Law & Order has mentioned the Yale Club in numerous episodes since its debut in 1990.
  • In his infamous weekly column titled "My Turn," author John O'Hara once lamented, "If Yale had given me a degree, I could have joined the Yale Club, where the food is pretty good, the library is ample and restful, the location convenient, and I could go there when I felt like it without sponging off friends. They also have a nice-looking necktie."[23]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Kenneth T. Jackson, The Encyclopedia of New York City. The New York Historical Society, Yale University Press, 1995. p. 1280.
  2. ^ a b c "The Old Yale Club; Make Way for the Blue and Gold," The New York Times, July 9, 1989
  3. ^ "The Season; Tickling the Ivy," The New York Times, September 19, 2004
  4. ^ a b c d Yale Club of New York City - Clubhouse
  5. ^ Yale Club of New York City - Club History
  6. ^ "The Painter And the President," The New York Times, November 9, 2003
  7. ^ a b "Yale Club Had but One Hale to Lose," The New York Times, January 19, 1995
  8. ^ Yale Club of New York City - Become a Member
  9. ^ "High and Dry At the Yale Club?" The New York Times, November 5, 2000
  10. ^ a b "Vote of 35-to-15 Lets Women Join 6,000-Member Yale Club," The New York Times, July 31, 1969
  11. ^ "Women's Privileges Widened at Yale Club," The New York Times, June 15, 1974
  12. ^ "Yale Club Lets Women Take 'the Plunge,'" The New York Times, October 7, 1987
  13. ^ "Eli Chic or Boola Boorish?; Moral Crisis: Yale Club Goes Casual on Fridays," The New York Times, August 20, 1999
  14. ^ Yale Club of New York City - Dress Code
  15. ^ 68th Heisman Trophy
  16. ^ Okla. QB Jason White Wins Heisman Trophy
  17. ^ "A Club of No Name, and Often, No Cigars," The New York Times, May 25, 2006
  18. ^ "Robert Bork Cites 'Wanton' Negligence in Suing Yale Club for $1-Million". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 2007-08-17.
  19. ^ "Robert H. Bork v. The Yale Club of New York City" (PDF). United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Retrieved 2007-08-17.
  20. ^ "Bork v. Bork," The New York Times, June 14, 2007
  21. ^ "Supreme nominee Bork settles Yale suit", New York Daily News, May 10, 2008
  22. ^ In Darkest Pennsylvania - HUMAN EVENTS
  23. ^ "My Turn," by John O'Hara, Newsday, September 4, 1965
  24. ^ "Elitist Persecution," The Daily Show, April 17, 2008
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