Metropolitan Club (New York City)

Metropolitan Club

The clubhouse's Fifth Avenue facade
Formation	1891; 133 years ago (1891)
Type	Private social club
Location	1 East 60th Street Manhattan, New York, U.S.
Website	metropolitanclubnyc.org
Coordinates	40°45′54″N 73°58′20″W / 40.76500°N 73.97222°W / 40.76500; -73.97222
Built	1891–1894
Architect	McKim, Mead & White (original building), Ogden Codman Jr. (expansion)
Architectural style(s)	Italian Renaissance Revival style
New York City Landmark
Designated	September 11, 1979[1]
Reference no.	1020[1]

The Metropolitan Club is a private social club on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It was founded as a gentlemen's club in March 1891 by a group of wealthy New Yorkers led by the financier John Pierpont Morgan. The clubhouse at Fifth Avenue and 60th Street was designed by McKim, Mead & White and is a New York City designated landmark. The club is controlled by a 25-member board of governors. Initially, only men could become members, though women were given membership privileges in the mid-20th century. Like other Gilded Age social clubs, the Metropolitan Club functioned largely as a meeting place for the wealthy, hosting events such as luncheons, dinners, debutante balls, and business meetings.

Morgan and 24 other wealthy men founded the club after two prominent men were denied membership at the Union Club of the City of New York. Work on the clubhouse began that May, and the club had attracted 1,000 members when the building was completed in February 1894. In its first few decades, the club hosted a variety of high-society events but also experienced financial shortfalls. The club acquired a neighboring house in 1912, and its membership increased to a high of 1,436 by the late 1920s. With the onset of the Great Depression, half the members had left by 1945, when the club narrowly avoided bankruptcy. The Metropolitan modernized its clubhouse over the next several decades. To raise money, the club contemplated erecting a tower in the 1970s and again in the 1980s, but both proposals were unsuccessful. A penthouse with a dining room was completed in 2007.

The clubhouse consists of three structures surrounding a courtyard. Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White designed the main clubhouse and a northern annex in the Italian Renaissance Revival style, while the easternmost structure was designed by Ogden Codman Jr. The original structures have a marble facade with relatively little ornamentation. By contrast, the clubhouse's interiors were designed as ornate spaces with various murals and carvings. The first story includes the Great Hall and lounges, while club rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms were on the upper stories.