NEW YORK — Belonging to a private club brings perks beyond having a place to brandish a golf club, booze it up with your chums or marry off your daughter in style. Membership often brings reciprocal privileges, meaning you can find a clubby spot to rest your head wherever you travel — as long as you remain in good standing with your home club, that is.
If you are a club member or have a friend who is, fine. Start planning your Big Apple trip now. If you aren’t a club member and don’t have a friend in one, consider this story yet another example of how the other half lives — or let it spur you to apply for membership at the nearest club.
I took the friend route into the Union League Club of New York, at 38 E. 37th St., just a few blocks south of Grand Central Terminal.
Founded in 1863 with the lofty mission to preserve the Union (the Civil War was going on at the time), the club’s membership roster has included U.S. presidents, senators, assorted politicos, titans of industry and the bluest bloods of Manhattan aristocracy. The club’s website boasts that members helped create the Metropolitan Museum of Art, erect the Statue of Liberty and battle William “Boss” Tweed and his corrupt cohorts.
The current clubhouse was built in 1931, a 10-story, brick-faced Georgian building whose quiet elegance blends into its Park Avenue neighborhood. The look inside is more dramatic, starting with the two-level entry that features plenty of dark wood and dramatically curved twin stairways.
Nothing symbolizes power, wealth and status in a crowded city like New York than open floor space. The Union League Club has plenty of that in its public rooms: a study studded with a jaw-dropping array of presidential portraits beginning with Lincoln; a well-stocked library; the cavernous double-height dining room with its golden curtains, dark wood paneling, blue-cushioned Chippendale dining chairs and paintings of 19th century A-listers; and the “cozier” Mary Murray dining room with its Queen Anne chairs, green walls and Victorian-era landscapes.
There are 60 guest rooms at the Union League Club of New York. My room was small by today’s standards. The look and scale clearly reflect an earlier age’s belief that bedrooms should be reserved solely for horizontal pursuits while the rest of one’s life is to be lived in public view. There was a very comfy queen-size bed, two side tables, a desk stocked with nice club stationery and an armoire armed with a TV. The closet sported 13 wood hangers and two padded hangers, an iron and ironing board. The bathroom was old-fashioned, which can be charming or maddening depending on your point of view. There was an honest-to-God medicine cabinet (when did you last see one of those?), a hair dryer and a range of shampoos, lotions and soaps by Moulton Brown.
Our bill was $279 a night, before taxes (a hefty $44.65 when totaled up); members of that club pay a discounted rate.
The welcome at the Union League Club is correct if a bit formal. All might have been forgiven if someone had helped us get the bags to the room. Ordering room service for breakfast was a similarly chilly experience.
Still, if one has the club connection and a desire to stay in Midtown, the Union League Club offers a good vantage point from which to explore the city by foot. Greenwich Village is a brisk 30-minute walk to the south, Rockefeller Center is about 12 blocks to the northwest, the Upper East Side is north of Grand Central, and Times Square and the theater district are a quick walk to the west.
