Glory Days
Are the glory days of club table lore over for good?
This past weekend, friends gathered at my Upper Manhattan apartment for several rounds of prosecco, steaks, and cigars — mostly Dominicans. Of course, there were subscribers to this fine publication present. A silly tiff broke out between us: which decade was better, the 1970s or the 1980s? None of us were alive then.
Days later, Merle Haggard’s “Are the Good Times Really Over?” was stuck in my head. The song came out in 1981.
Like always, my mind went back to Clubland. Are the glory days that we hear about at club tables all over the country over for good?
Benjamin Kahn writes about the decline of true club ambassadors, a crucial bulwark against us ever having to answer the above question. Ishaan Jajodia is away on his annual safari. And yours truly brings this week’s dispatches.
Do share this week’s Clubland USA issue, brought to friends and subscribers by Double Dot Squash, far and wide. Encourage them to subscribe here or by using your unique referral link below. — LR
Bring a damn guest — preferably one who’s younger than the Internet
By: Benjamin Kahn
Imagine that you’re a young person in 1980. You’ve just graduated from university, found an affordable apartment somewhere along Fifth Avenue and are searching for your footing in Manhattan Clubland.
Depending on your circumstances, the options are endless. If you would have been a religious minority (especially Jewish), Black, anything besides heterosexual or a woman, at these times, this would have certainly been slightly different for you and we’re glad that many clubs have grown up.
If you’re an Ivy Leaguer, there’s clubs for Harvard, Yale, Penn and even Princeton. The latter would close in 2021. If you’re a Dartmouth alum in 1980, you’ve still got a strong grudge over the financial woes from the last decade that has forced you into sharing a building with the Yale Club.
For the New York City nerds out there, the Dartmouth Club’s last solo stint involved occupying a suite of rooms at the Commodore Hotel. The Commodore Hotel was purchased in 1976 by a young real estate developer, Donald Trump, and became the site of the Grand Hyatt Hotel.
Nonetheless, even if you weren’t a part of the Ivy League crowd, clubs were flourishing. You had your choices of Union, Union League, Knickerbocker, Colony, Society of Illustrators, Explorers, and others depending on your background.
Manhattan, where love for the theatrical flowed like three-martini lunches, boasted three different clubs for entertainers.
“If you’re an actor trying to be a gentleman, you go to the Lambs.” playwright George S. Kaufman once remarked. “If you’re a gentleman trying to be an actor, you go to The Players. And if you’re neither trying to be both, you go to The Friars.” The Friars, unfortunately, closed its doors in 2023 after years of financial woes and The Players is the only of the remaining three in its original location.
What made Clubland so different then compared to now?
Following our thought experiment, your first visit to Manhattan Clubland — or anywhere in America, for that matter, would have been at the helm of a resident. Perhaps, it was your supervisor, your then-summer fling’s father visiting a reciprocal club from Minnesota or that eccentric bon vivant who lived above you in that affordable Fifth Avenue building referenced earlier.
Today, we have become complacent ambassadors for our clubs. The culture of a fine club should be so encouraging that members want to bring an intern, colleague or manager, and even that university classmate who visits twice per year for a visit.
While the 1980s is truly before my time, one arrives at the impression that before the 2000s, it wasn’t odd to see a club bar filled with members under the age of 40. Today, for many clubs, members under 40 are a spectacle; under 35, they’re a rarity; and under 30, they’re just downright lost.
These visits and interactions are essential for Clubland’s survival. And it should be taken as a big sign if your members don’t feel comfortable bringing a guest to the club. It doesn’t take a six-figure marketing budget to determine that something’s extremely off if more than half of the club’s membership has never proposed someone for membership.
Members continuously shirking their duties as club ambassadors will only lead to more obituary dispatches from Clubland USA. So, on this fine Tuesday as you’re reading this right before heading off to your club, do your part and bring a damn guest—preferably one who doesn’t remember a time before the internet.
If you’re curious, the overwhelming majority of those present (4-1) believed that the 1980s were in fact better than the 1970s. The one, however, was an attorney (and a subscriber, so he will see this) and labored on and on until we called a former employer of his. The former employer, also the father of one of the four, was alive in the 1970s and 80s and sided with the majority. “The 1970s was the only time that I had to wait in a line that circled the block for gas”, he remarked.
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Dispatches from Clubland
Last Officers Club? Word has it that Ishaan Jajodia is actually searching for a last remaining British officer’s club while in the Himalayas. Perhaps, he’ll bring back a new reciprocal agreement for one of his clubs.
Clubby Sunday. The Cedar Point Yacht Club in Westport, CT hosted an open house this past Sunday, June 8. TUCK Gin served a choice of Tom Collins or Gin and Tonics. Here’s what we want to know: is a swim test required for membership?
New home for Big Club. The National Club Association, an advocacy and research organization for the club community affectionally called Big Club by this publication, will be relocating to the Alexandria, V.A. headquarters of the Club Management Association of America in September. Just goes to show that DC rents are so high that even Big Club has to settle for Virginia.
Thank you for reading Clubland USA. Our next issue will be in this inbox on Tuesday, June 17.
Since none of these esteemed editors were alive in the 70s or 80s, let’s be clear, the 80s hands down beats the 70s. The best part of the 70s was Richard Nixon and Oakland sports winning the Super Bowl, 3 World Series titles and an NBA Championship.
And why no love for the Downtown Association?