Grolier Club Building

29 East 32nd Street | Midtown South | built 1889

Open on the map4 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1890

    Charles W. Romeyn designs a clubhouse for the Grolier Club

    Architect Charles W. Romeyn designed a Romanesque Revival clubhouse of tan Roman brick and red sandstone for the Grolier Club, a society of book collectors, publishers, and printers. The facade combined bold stone arches with Celtic-inspired carvings on the first floor and a grand arched window above, deliberately given a residential look to blend into the block.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1914

    The Grolier Club relocates as commercial development crowds the block

    By 1914, encroaching commercial development around East 32nd Street pushed the Grolier Club, whose library of roughly 12,000 volumes on printing and bookbinding was considered among the finest outside the national libraries of France and England, to move to a new clubhouse. The vacated building then passed to a series of garment-trade tenants, including the Building Employees Union.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1970

    August 18

    The city designates the former Grolier Club building a landmark

    New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the former Grolier Club clubhouse a landmark on August 18, 1970. The building was later added to the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places in 1980. It has also been known as the Gilbert Kiamie House, after the actor who used it as a private residence in the 1940s.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1990

    The former clubhouse reopens as a members-only supper club called The Grolier

    In 1990, the former Grolier Club clubhouse was converted into The Grolier, a members-only supper club. The building had already passed through a series of 20th-century tenants after the club's 1914 departure, including garment-trade offices and, in the 1940s, actor Gilbert Kiamie's private residence.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 20 buildings with stories in Midtown South