The University Club of New York

The University Club is a private club at Fifth Avenue and 54th Street in Manhattan, incorporated in 1865 and housed since May 1899 in an Italian Renaissance Revival building by Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead & White. It was founded as a club for college graduates -- an 1879 rule required a degree taken at least three years earlier -- and it retains a degree-based admission tradition rather than being tied to any one university. The clubhouse offers dining rooms, guest rooms, athletic facilities and a library the club describes as the largest and finest club library in the world, holding roughly 100,000 books and periodicals. Members also use the house for weddings and banquets. The club's public website is deliberately thin: it carries pages on the club, guest rooms, banquets and weddings, a house rules document and a member login, but no membership page, eligibility statement, application form or fee schedule. Detailed house rules govern dress, use of phones and laptops, photography and publicity, including a bar on using the club directory to solicit business.

How it works

Members use a single clubhouse for dining, athletics, the library, overnight stays and private events. House rules require jackets and dress attire in the public rooms, restrict spoken mobile-phone use to phone booths, guest rooms and private rooms, and confine laptop use to the library and other approved areas. Members may not use the club's name, address or directory for business solicitation, publicity or media coverage without House Committee approval. Member statements are issued monthly and cash payment for club services is not permitted.

Typical member

Not publicly disclosed. The club publishes no member statistics; historical accounts record roughly 502 members in 1879, 2,800 in 1901 and about 4,000 in the 1980s.

The University Club sits in an odd position among Manhattan clubs: it is a university club without a university, admitting graduates of any accredited institution rather than alumni of one school, which makes it broader than the Harvard or Yale clubs and narrower than a general city club. Its public disclosure is minimal -- there is no membership page at all -- so cost and process can only be established by approaching the club. The house rules are the most informative public document and they are unusually restrictive on business use: no soliciting from the directory, no press coverage without written approval, no laptops outside the library and guest rooms. That makes it a poor choice for anyone who wants a working clubhouse, and a strong one for members who want a quiet, private house. The library is a genuine differentiator.

Editorial analysis by Peer Group Guide editors. It is separated from the record above and follows the editorial policy.