Knickerbocker Club

Knickerbocker Club
Gentlemen's club
Predecessor Union Club of the City of New York
Founded 1871 (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.

The name "Knickerbocker", mainly thanks to writer Washington Irving, was a byword for a New York patrician, comparable to a "Boston Brahmin."[1][2]

Clubhouse

The Knick's current clubhouse, a neo-Georgian structure at 2 East 62nd Street, was commissioned in 1913 and completed in 1915,[3] on the site of the mansion of Josephine Schmid, a wealthy widow.[4] It was designed by William Adams Delano and Chester Holmes Aldrich,[5] and has been designated a city landmark.[3]

History

1882 clubouse, 5th Ave and 32nd St

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.[5]

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.[5]

The Knick was the location of a fictional murder in Victoria Thompson's 2012 whodunit Murder on Fifth Avenue: A Gaslight Mystery (Berkeley 2012, ISBN 978-0425247419).[3]

Notable members

Relationship with other clubs

The Knick has reciprocal arrangements with clubs around the world, such as the Cercle Royal du Parc in Brussels, Circolo della Caccia in Rome, Australian Club, Brooks's Club and the Turf Club in London, the Jockey-Club de Paris and the Nouveau Cercle de l'Union, the Melbourne Club, the Kildare Street & University Club, and the Círculo de Armas de Buenos Aires.

See also

References

  1. "Knickerbocker". Dictionary.com. Random House, retrieved 2008-1-3.
  2. Frederic Cople Jaher, "Nineteenth-Century Elites in Boston and New York", Journal of Social History Vol. 6, No. 1 (Autumn 1972), pp. 32-77.
  3. 1 2 3 Pollak, Michael. "Was Anyone Killed at the Knickerbocker Club?" New York Times (FEB. 21, 2014).
  4. Miller, Tom (2011-04-11). "Daytonian in Manhattan: The Lost 1898 Del Drago Mansion -- No. 807 Fifth Avenue". Daytonian in Manhattan. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
  5. 1 2 3 Gray, Christopher. "Inside the Union Club, Jaws Drop", New York Times (Feb. 11, 2007).
  6. https://www.nytimes.com/1964/05/03/robert-daniel-jr-and-sally-chase-wed-in-richmond.html?_r=0

Coordinates: 40°45′57.23″N 73°58′17.28″W / 40.7658972°N 73.9714667°W / 40.7658972; -73.9714667

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