You can access a scrollable Google Map of the clubs of the Upper East Side by clicking HERE.
New York is a club city. After London, it has the second-largest concentration of private members’ clubs anywhere in the world. With some club-like institutions dating to the city’s early days as an English colony, and its oldest fully-fledged club dating to 1836, a strong club tradition has been deeply rooted in the metropolis as it has expanded. More overtly socially elitist than its London counterparts, and with often far more luxurious clubhouses, its Clubland nevertheless has a spread of clubs split across different themes.
New York’s fifty-odd clubs are so numerous, that to simply cover the clubs of Manhattan (and there are flourishing clubs in the other boroughs, such as Brooklyn), it is necessary to split it into three posts. This piece focuses on the Upper East Side (UES). Part 2 will look at Midtown, and Part 3 will look at Downtown and Lower Manhattan.
The UES was traditionally the home of New York’s wealthy, to which the elite clubs migrated; it was not uncommon for clubs to start their existence downtown, and to move to newer, quieter and more elaborate premises uptown - for instance, the Union Club began in a private townhouse Downtown on Bond Street, moved to its first purpose-built clubhouse at 21st Street in 1855, and then moved to 51st Street in 1903, before settling on its present clubhouse on East 69th Street in 1933.
It is also worth mentioning a caveat around how a “club” is defined - this is something I deal with in an appendix of my latest book, but it is particularly relevant here when dealing with “proto-clubs”, like the literary societies of 18th and early 19th century north America, which are something of a “grey area”, and have at various times embraced and renounced the idea of being clubs.
Gentlemen’s clubs of the Upper East Side
The Union Club. (Photo credit: ‘Untapped Cities’ blog, by Michelle Young.)
Irrefutably the oldest of the fully-fledged clubs of the city is the Union Club of the City of New York, more typically abbreviated to the “Union Club”, which was founded in 1836, and which is often described as the fifth-oldest club in the United States. The current clubhouse, dating to 1933, is one of several that was built by the well-connected beaux arts architectural firm of Delano & Aldrich, which specialised in prestigious buildings. The opulent building, that includes athletic as well as social facilities, benefitted from the reduced cost of construction in the Great Depression. I once had the membership described to me as, “Too grand for the Kennedys. A lot of the members have “III” or “IV” after their names.”
The Knickerbocker Club. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Foundation.)
One of the best-known clubs in the world, the Knickerbocker Club was founded in 1871, reputedly by Dutch-American members of the Union Club who were disenchanted that they did not find it as socially exclusive as it had been a generation earlier. It was previously based on Fifth Avenue and 32nd Street. Like the Union Club, its East 62nd Street clubhouse overlooking Central Park was designed by Delano & Aldrich. It was completed in 1915. Elegantly proportioned, the emphasis of the building is on intimacy rather than scale. As well as a strong focus on American “old money”, there has long been a smattering of overseas royalty and aristocracy among the membership.
The Leash. (Photo credit: The Cary Collection/Instagram.)
Rather colourful is the Leash Club on 63rd Street, usually known as “The Leash”, which owes its existence to Prohibition. Founded in 1925, it was effectively a speakeasy, run as a private members’ club. Members purported to be dog-lovers who would call on the club when “out walking their dogs,” as an excuse to visit the bar. In memory of its original purpose, part of the first floor is still lined with lockers bearing brass plaques with dog names, that would contain liquor. It remains deeply rooted in the Upper East Side, with a large proportion of its members living within ten blocks of the Club. And while it still has its fair share of dog-lovers, its theme has informally evolved to embrace hunting, shooting and fishing as the members’ key shared pursuits.
Ladies’ clubs of the Upper East Side
The Colony Club. (Photo credit: New Yorkitecture/Ken Grant.)
As well as its men’s clubs, the UES also has a pair of distinguished ladies’ clubs. The oldest is the Colony Club at 62nd Street and Park Avenue. It was founded by Florence Jaffray Harriman in 1903. At the time, it was New York’s first club for women, following the model of the ladies’ clubs of London over the previous three decades. The original clubhouse on Madison Avenue between 30th and 31st Streets was built by the prolific but now-notorious Stanford White, of the firm of McKim, Mead and White - the company that was the great rival of Delano & Aldrich in designing New York’s most luxurious clubhouses of the early 20th century - and that first building still stands today as the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. In 1916, it moved to its current location, which is a capacious Delano & Aldrich clubhouse. The last time I mentioned I was going there, I was told by the lady I’d been having lunch with, “I can’t go there! I don’t have enough diamonds!” I am still unsure how much it was meant as a joke.
The Cosmopolitan Club. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Foundation.)
Perhaps quite not as grand, but still very opulent and prestigious, is the Cosmopolitan Club, originally founded in 1909 for governesses in New York. Founder members were Helen Gilman Brown, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Edith Carpenter Macy, Adele Herter, Mrs. E. R. Hewitt, Mrs. John Sherman Hoyt, and Mrs. Ellwood Hendrick. Originally located on 33rd Street, and then relocated to 44th Street, it moved to its present East 66th Street Art Deco clubhouse in 1932, designed by society architect Thomas Harlan Ellett, with the design winning the Archiectural Association’s gold medal in 1933. The various roof gardens are a particular highlight.
“Co-ed” historic clubs of the Upper East Side
The New York Society Library. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Foundation.)
While most of the Upper East Side’s clubs were historically men-only, most have since switched to being mixed-sex since the 1970s. The oldest - more of a club-like organisation, than strictly speaking a social club - is the New York Society Library founded as a subscription library in 1754. Since 1937, it has been based on East 79th Street, its fifth home since its inception. It houses some 300,000 volumes, plus a range of multimedia.
The Harmonie Club. (Photo credit: Harmonie Club account on Instagram.)
The Harmonie Club was founded in 1852 as the Gesellschaft Harmonie, by German-Jewish Americans who found themselves unble to join the Union Club. After an itinerant phase, its first clubhouse in 1867 was on West 42nd Street, before it moved to its present East 60th Street location in 1905. The clubhouse was again by Stanford White of McKim, Mead and White. (I can recommend Horatio Joyce’s scholarly article on the building, ‘Disharmony in the Clubhouse,’ based on his PhD research on New York clubhouse architecture.)
The Lotos Club. (Photo credit: ‘Manhattan Sideways’ blog.)
One of the city’s premier clubs for patrons of the arts and literature is the Lotos Club, founded in 1870. It takes its name from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem ‘The Lotos-Eaters,’ with the Lotos representing relaxation. Originally housed at Irving Place by 14th Street, in 1877 it moved to Fifth Avenue at 21st Street, then in 1893 to Fifth Avenue at 45th Street, then moving in 1909 to West 57th Street, and then in 1947 it relocated to its current home, a 1900-built mansion by Richard Howland Hunt on East 66th Street. The Club has a long-standing tradition of “State Dinners”, producing a unique, illustrated menu themed around each Guest of Honour, along the lines of the tradition of the Savage Club or the London Sketch Club in the UK.
The Grolier Club. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Foundation.)
The Grolier Club is a unique institution, a club for bibliophiles which is almost as much a private museum and library as it is a club. Established in 1884 and named after the noted French book collector Jean Grolier de Servières, Viscount d'Aguisy, its founding members were William Loring Andrews, Theodore L. DeVinne, A. W. Drake, Albert Gallup, Robert Hoe III, Brayton Ives, Samuel W. Marvin, E. S. Mead, and Arthur B. Turnu. Originally based on Madison Avenue, in 1890 it moved to East 32nd Street, before settling in 1917 on its current clubhouse on East 60th Street, designed by Bertram Goodhue.
The Metropolitan Club. (Photo credit: ADP Architects.)
The Metropolitan Club on East 60th Street has a gargantuan clubhouse overlooking Central Park. It was founded in 1891, at the behest of J. P. Morgan (the original “robber-baron” individual, not the firm he established). The 25 founder-members led by Morgan came together after two of them (railroad president John King, and physician William Seward Webb) were denied entry to the Union Club, and set out to build something to eclipse the city’s existing clubs. Stanford White of McKim, Mead and White built the original westernmost structure as a clubhouse, completed in 1894, as well as its northern annexe. A later eastern annexe by Ogden Codman Jr. was built in 1912, enclosing a small courtyard at the centre.
The Explorers Club. (Photo credit: The Observer.)
The Explorers Club was founded by Henry Collins Walsh in 1904, for practising explorers. More than just a private members’ club, it is also affiliated to some 34 chapters of related societies around the USA. Its past members have been the first to reach the South Pole, to scale Mount Everest, to reach the bottom of the sea, and to walk on the Moon. Having originally been based at West 67th Street, in 1965 Lowell Thomas organised the purchase of the present clubhouse, on East 70th Street. Much of the Jacobean Revival building is given over to the library, map room, club artifacts and archives. The 2022 Discovery documentary series Tales from the Explorers Club highlights expeditions by club members.
The Links. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Foundation.)
The Links Club, better known as “The Links”, was founded in 1916 by golf champion Charles Blair Macdonald for his fellow golfing aficionados, and it rapidly gained a reputaion as a discreet social club for the city’s banking elite, as well as being favoured by diplomats. It still occupies its original building on East 62nd Street.
New clubs of the Upper East Side
The Sherry-Netherland Hotel, containing the Doubles Club below. (Photo credit: Hotel Boutique.)
The Upper East Side also contains its share of “new” clubs - the oldest of which actually hits its 50th anniversary next year. The Doubles Club was a pioneer of the modern proprietary hotel-club, when it opened in 1976 in the basement of the Sherry-Netherland Hotel on Fifth Avenue at 59th Street. It had begun some two years earlier as a discreet backgammon spot, by long-term hotel resident Joe Norban, before evolving more fully into a club. Town and Country magazine argues that it is closer in spirit to “old New York”, with its emphasis on high society.
Fasano Fifth Avenue. (Photo Credit: City Realty.)
A more recent hotel-club, which opened in 2021 as part of the post-pandemic club ‘boom’, is the one contained in Fasano Fifth Avenue, the hotel on Fifth Avenue between East 62nd and East 63rd Streets. The building was acquired for Brazilian businessman Gero Fasano in 2012, and decorated to the designs of Thierry Despoint. It offers four floors of club facilities, plus seven “Clubhouse Suites”, and members can also book hotel rooms and the residences above.
The Surrey, housing Casa Tua. (Photo credit: DuJour magazine.)
Another recent addition, from 2024, is Casa Tua, the New York branch of what began as a Miami club in 2001. Based inside the Surrey, a Corinthia hotel on East 76th Street. Owned by the Italian entrepreneur Miky Grendene and his wife, model Leticia Herrera, it partners with the hotel’s catering, with an emphasis on Mediterranean food.
Maxime’s (Photo credit: Financial Times/Matthew McDermott.)
One of the latest additions to the city is something that many predicted would never happen: the late Mark Birley repeatedly turned down invitations to open a club in Manhattan, commenting that he could not see himself commuting back and forth between London and New York. But his son Robin Birley, best known for his existing London clubs at 5 Hertford Street and Oswald’s, has opened Maxime’s in 2025, on Madison Avenue at 70th Street, converting the former Westbury Hotel. Occupying a whole block, the vast clubhouse has garnered considerable press interest.
For the next section of this piece, Part 2 will look at Midtown, while Part 3 will look at Downtown and Lower Manhattan.
You can view the full and varied backlog of Clubland Substack articles, by clicking on the index below.
Index
Articles are centred around several distinct strands, so the below contains links to the main pieces, sorted by theme.