New York Yacht Club Building
37 West 44th Street | also 35 West 44th Street, 39 West 44th Street | Midtown | built 1900
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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.
- 1898
J. P. Morgan offers to buy three 44th Street lots for the yacht club if dues double
In October 1898, as the New York Yacht Club's site committee was still debating, its commodore, J. Pierpont Morgan, surprised everyone by offering to buy three lots on West 44th Street for the club. His condition was that the members commit to a more important clubhouse with a 75-foot front, and he also insisted that annual dues rise from $25 to $50. The offer, worth $148,000, was one the members could hardly ignore.
“…insisted that the annual dues be raised from $25 to $50 per year…”
- 1901
Warren & Wetmore's clubhouse opens with ship-stern bay windows
Architect Whitney Warren of Warren & Wetmore won a design competition for the Beaux-Arts clubhouse in December 1898, and it opened in 1901. Its most distinctive feature is a set of bay windows that resemble the sterns of ships, with carvings of seaweed, waves, and dolphins. On the second story, a double-height model room measuring about 45 by 100 feet holds the club's collection of ship models.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1936
The yacht club schedules its first ladies' day since moving into the clubhouse
In March 1936 the Times reported that the New York Yacht Club would hold a ladies' day at its clubhouse at 37 West 44th Street, set for the afternoon of March 22. It was the first time women had been invited inside since the club moved into the building in 1901. The newspaper described it as part of what many members were calling a liberalizing policy.
Source: The New York Times
- 1965
Mrs. Caryl H. Sayre becomes the first woman to receive a yacht club prize for competition afloat
On the evening of November 11, 1965, the New York Yacht Club gave a prize for competition afloat to a woman for the first time in its 121 years. The recipient, Mrs. Caryl H. Sayre, was one of the club's few women members, and the presentation took place in the West 44th Street clubhouse. The Times opened its report by noting that the venerable club had finally gotten around to it.
Source: The New York Times
- 1979
New York City designates the clubhouse a landmark
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the clubhouse a city landmark on September 11, 1979. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 29, 1982, and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1983
The New York Yacht Club loses the America's Cup after 126 years
The club held the America's Cup, yachting's oldest international trophy, from 1857 until it lost the 1983 race to the Royal Perth Yacht Club. The trophy had been displayed in the clubhouse from the building's opening and was removed from the model room after the loss.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1985
A six-foot chandelier leaves the clubhouse as a renovation chases the original design
In August 1985 a half-dozen men wrestled an ornate six-foot chandelier, with leaf scrolls and mirrored panels, out of the clubhouse and onto a van, which took it to a shop in Astoria, Queens. Commodore Emil Mosbacher Jr. said the renovation aimed to put the building in good shape and keep it as near as possible to its original design. The America's Cup, the club's best-known fixture, had been missing since September 1983, and Mosbacher laughed that he hoped to be the only commodore to serve without it.
Source: The New York Times
- 1988
America's Cup lawyers pore over the club's library for evidence in the catamaran fight
In the fall of 1988 the club's quiet 44th Street library had become a research stop for lawyers in the dispute over the America's Cup. Attorneys for the San Diego Yacht Club's defense and for Michael Fay's New Zealand challenge both came looking for papers from the late 1880s, the period when the Deed of Gift was drawn up. Librarian Sohei Hohri had been told by the club's legal advisers to stay neutral, and anything copied from the club's minutes for one side was passed to the other.
Source: The New York Times
- 1992
The club prepares a $600,000 restoration to strip the gray paint from its limestone facade
In April 1992 the Times reported that the club was about to start a $600,000 exterior restoration. At some point the pergola and flagstaffs had been removed and the facade painted gray, which left the front looking dull and flat. Commodore William H. Dyer Jones hoped, with city approval, to restore the pergola and flagstaffs, and a Landmarks Commission official said paint can hide deterioration and make stone less porous.
Source: The New York Times
Further reading
- New York Yacht Club BuildingWikipedia
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