Century Association , the most unspeakably respectable club in NY

Private clubs have been a part of New York City for centuries. Some clubs were more exclusive than others. The private gentleman’s club, based on the English model, has had a long history in the five boroughs. Men socialized, dined, and drank with other men of their social class in beautiful surroundings.

Membership to these clubs was (and still is) difficult to obtain. I already wrote about some of the clubs  - The Racquet and Tennis Club, private club with nude swimming tradition and Lamb's club on 44th street Century Association is one of the oldest private clubs in New York. 

William Bryant

 Mark Twain once referred to this club as, “The most unspeakably respectable club in New York”. The club was based on an early earlier organization – the Sketch Club, founded in 1829 by editor and poet William Cullen Bryant, American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post. 


In 1884, New York City's Reservoir Square, at the intersection of 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue, was renamed Bryant Park in his honor. William Bryant was one of the first club presidents. In the Clubs' constitution is written: "The name of the Association shall be "The Century". It shall be composed of authors, artists and amateurs of Letters and Fine Arts, residents Of City of New York and its vicinity: its objects the cultivation of a taster for Letters and the Arts and Social enjoyment" .

 

The club fee at that that time was 20 dollars per year and no games of any kind were allowed in the Rooms of Association. The members of the club called each other "The Brothers of the Century". The number of members was supposed to be limited to 100. The Century Association web page said: "The Century is a quintessentially New York place: Despite its debt to London clubs and the national and even international character of its membership, it could exist nowhere else. Its main activity is conversation."

There are about two thousand members now and Michael Bloomberg , Henry Kissinger and the oldest living member of the Rockefeller family David Rockefeller are among them. Till the end of the 20th century the club, as almost all other private New York clubs, was male-only. Century begun admitting female members only in 1989. In 1891, The Century Association left the old club on 15th Street for its current location, at 7 West 43rd Street, an Italian Renaissance-style palazzo. 

The new club house was designed by the prominent architecture company McKim, Mead & White. Stanford White was the member of the club. Six years before The Century clubhouse the company built Villard Mansion, today New York Palace Hotel. Later the same company built many beautiful buildings for other New York Private clubs, such as Harmonie Club, University Club of New York and Harvard Club of New York.

Century Associations Members, referred as Centurions, appeared on the American and Foreign stamps. Of 112 Centurions honored there are eight Presidents two prime ministers 22 artists and sculptors. Seventeen Nobel laureates - centurions have appeared on the stamps.

Lamb's club on 44th street

A group of actors and theatre enthusiasts took the  name from a similar group, the Lambs Club of London. London Club met earlier in the 19th century at the house of Charles Lamb, the drama critic and essayist. Since its founding, there have been more than 6,000 Lambs including Fred Astaire and  Irving Berlin. As other clubs The Lambs had its traditions.  Women  and dramatic critic were not allowed. The president of the Lambs Club was named  the "Shepherd," the vice president was  - the "Boy." Over the years The Lambs has held many large entertainment events, or Gambols. Proceeds were used to finance the Club's operations.
The Club has its own song with the words:
We're poor little lambs
who have lost our way,
Baa Baa Baa,
We're little black sheep
who have gone astray
Baa Baa Baa.


The song is an abstract from  the   Rudyard Kipling's  ("The Jungle Book"  author ) poem "Gentlemen-Rankers"
There is an interesting relationship  between the club and  the  Manhattan's Church of the Transfiguration  on East 29.  Every rector of the church  is made an honorary member of the club. In 1870  an actor George Holland was denied a funeral by a pastor of a Fifth Avenue church, who  suggested to  "try the little church around the corner." Since that time, the "little church" has enjoyed most of The Lambs' (and the theatre's) nuptial and funeral trade.
In 1903 the Lambs Club purchased two lots at  West 44th Street. The famous architect  Stanford White was an  architect on the new club building.  On the first floor were the lobby with a bank of telephones, a grill room and billiard room; on the second floor was a banquet hall. 
The wall od the building are adorn with the lamb heads.  The size of the building was doubled in 1915 when an addition to the west, a virtual copy of White's original, was constructed.
In 1974, the 44th Street building was designated by the New York City Landmarks and Preservation Commission. A year later  following financial difficulties with the club, it was sold to the Church of the Nazarene.   The Lambs Club  now  shared space at 3 West 51st Street with The Women's National Republican Club. By the way women can be the members of the Lamb Club now.
Now the building on the West 44th street is occupied  by   The Chatwal  hotel ( with the room price starting from $400) and The Lambs Club- bar and restaurant.

Celebrity roasters and Time Capsule in Friars Club

     More than 100 years ago press agents met once a week at Browne’s Chophouse, in Manhattan to talk about their problems.  Later   the actors and musicians started to join them.  

     “The group realized they needed a broader name to incorporate the ever-diversifying membership. The term Friars stems from the Latin “frater” meaning brother – the perfect name for a fraternal organization whose motto would soon become Prae Omnia Fraternitas (brotherhood forever in Latin).”  

     The club made a name for itself being as vulgar and unorthodox as any group can be.  At the same time the members of the club  call their club house Monastery and add monastic labels to its officers: the Abbot is the head of the organization, the Dean is president.

     Their first club Monastery was on 107 West 45 street in the St James hotel.  The first Friars Frolic  ( as the club members named fundraiser event) was inaugurated in 1911, for which Irving Berlin wrote Alexander’s Ragtime Band. Frolics were successful, the number of the members was enlarging  and the Club purchased three lots on  West 48th Street and built it’s own house in 1916.

     This new Monastery had  suites for sleeping, a ballroom, dining room, poolroom, a gym, bars, and meeting rooms.  After the Great Depression the Friars lost their beloved building. During next 20 years the club had been hopping from one hotel to another. But the club survived and moved to their current  Monastery on 55^th in 1957.

     This German Renaissance townhouse was constructed in 1909 as the private house for investment banker Martin Erdmann. In 1910, he lived here on his own income, with no family members, but with eight servants. Erdmann himself was born in New York, but his father was from Germany.  This is the only remaining house on what was once a residential block. The original deed of the house restricted the building’s usage from any noisy or smelly activities.

      The Friars Club   on 55th Street hosts about 175 events a year, including stand-up comedy shows, concerts and a film festival. The restaurant is open six days a week.  The club  has it’s club's legendary “roasts” in which comedians pepper a celebrity with good-natured insults. 

In 1949 with Maurice Chevalier, a French actor  and singer, as the guest of honor, the club members  held their first “Roast.” 

Lisa Lampanelli,  an Italian-American stand-up comedian, said: “A Friars Club roast is a great place to bring a drunken sailor who wants to learn some new words.”

The Friars Club started out as an all-male Club.  In  1988 the Friars welcomed women, and   Liza Minnelli  became the first official card-carrying female member. The list of celebrities- the members of the club -  is really long and includes Irving Berlin, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Kirk Douglas, Barbra Streisand, Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, Donald Trump, John Travolta.   

     Club bylaws say a maximum of 30 percent of club members may come from outside entertainment . The club charges are correlated to the  member’s age: members under 40 pay half the cost of the initiation fee and annual dues, and those under 30 pay quarter of those charges. Admittance requires recommendation by two club members .

     New York Friars club celebrated its 100th birthday in 2006. At the celebration event Freddie Roman, the club's dean for the past 35 years, said: “We have some of the funniest people in the world here today. Our history is the history of show business. We survived vaudeville, burlesque, eight-track tapes, Chevy Chase's talk show and Mayor Bloomberg's smoking ban".

The club had recently opened an earlier “time capsule” buried a hundred years prior. The capsule had clippings from local newspapers like the World, The Telegram, The Times, The American, The Sun, The Herald, The Journal and the Tribune.

In the new capsule each Friar was offered a page in the new container Gregory Alexson was one such Friar and he told the story.

The Friars Foundation, established in 1977 , has raised over $5 million dollars to  help prepare the next generation of performers and musical artists through scholarship programs for students studying the performing arts.

Every year the Sunshine Committee during the holidays invites 1,500 underprivileged children to a movie screening at a mid-Manhattan theater. After the movie each child receives a “goody bag” filled with toys, hats, scarves, books and a variety of other items guaranteed to make their holidays brighter.

In 2004 the City of New York named the South East Corner of 55th Street “Friars Way.”

There is a joke of the day published on the Friar’s page. You can subscribe to Webmonk to have the joke delivered to you every day.