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, whose portrait by the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury painted in 1890 hangs in the building. 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. Thereafter, in 1901, the club built and opened a new, twelve-story clubhouse at 30 West 44th Street, which today is home to the Penn Club of New York.
The current clubhouse opened in June 1915, designed by architect and Yale alumnus James Gamble Rogers. It was largely paid for by money raised or contributed by President George C. Ide of Brooklyn (whose portrait by George Burroughs Torrey also hangs in the building). 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. Today, the site of Hale's execution is disputed.
According to the Ken Burns documentary Prohibition, the Yale Club was able to stock up enough liquor to see the club through the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.
Read more about this topic: Yale Club Of New York City
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“... in a history of spiritual rupture, a social compact built on fantasy and collective secrets, poetry becomes more necessary than ever: it keeps the underground aquifers flowing; it is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)