City Athletic Club Records

The objects of this organization shall be: to encourage all manly sports and to promote physical culture; to maintain a club house and athletic grounds for the use of its members, and generally to add to their comfort and entertainment.

– Constitution and Bylaws of the City Athletic Club, circa 1909 ¹

The City Athletic Club (CAC) was founded with 46 members at an August 19th, 1908 meeting held at the Hotel Brevoort in Manhattan. Ralph Wolf was elected acting chairman and Stanley M. Isaacs elected temporary secretary.² Temporary founding committees were authorized for club admissions, establishing the Club's constitution and bylaws, building facilities, and finances.

A second, larger meeting announcing the incorporation of the CAC was held at the Hotel Astor on November 12, 1908. Isaacs (the son of Myer Isaacs, former head of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, as well as former publisher of the American Hebrew and Jewish Messenger), was quoted in the American Hebrew and Jewish Messenger at the opening: "We have had this project under consideration for some time. Many of us, all Jewish young men, have long felt the difficulties that the Jew has experienced when he endeavored to gain admittance to any of the leading clubs in the city. The objections usually were two-fold. Either the club was entirely social, card parties being the predominant feature, or else the doors of the organization were closed to the Jew, if not by direct legislation, then through such discrimination that no self-respecting Jew could care to be enrolled. Recognizing these difficulties, a committee… started this movement to combine physical development with social activity…"³

At that second meeting, Edwin C. Vogel, Chairman of the Membership Committee, presented a list of 500 charter members.⁴ The CAC was formally incorporated and members adopted a permanent constitution and bylaws, elected the first Board of Governors, and ratified its selection of 48-50 West 54th Street as its permanent home. Invited initial members were not required to pay an initiation fee. However, by February 1909 an assessment fee of $75 per member was levied to fund an extensive CAC building renovation, turning the former school into a social club. The assessment fee was waived if members opted to purchase a $1000 gold bond.⁵

The CAC building had originally been slated to open as St. Margaret's School for Girls. However, the school fell through near completion and Solomon R. Guggenheim (mining magnate, art collector, and philanthropist), acquired the building, leasing it for the benefit of the CAC for 21 years at a starting rent of $15,000 per year.⁶Isaacs noted in the American Hebrew and Jewish Messenger that the nine-story building's top two floors would be converted to an indoor running track, "one of the largest indoor tracks in the city, surpassing in size that of the New York Athletic Club," the CAC's more well-established and older rival, founded in 1868.⁷

The CAC opened on December 8th 1909, with an announcement inviting members and their friends (men and women), to inspect the premises with a buffet served and entertainment later in the evening for members only.⁸The extensive interior alterations, started by architects, Herts and Tallant, and finished by Albert S. Gottlieb, included two bowling alleys in the basement; a 60,000-gallon swimming pool; a Turkish bath (steam, dry sauna, massage, needle, and vapor baths); a barber shop; squash courts, a running track; a two-floor gymnasium; a library and reading room; a lounge, bar, restaurant, and grill room; and a billiard room.⁹The lower floors of the building were rented out as rooms for members with an annual rent ranging from $600-$1050 per year.¹⁰

Hundreds of members of the City Athletic Club served in the military during World Wars I and II (see the Complete War Record of the City Athletic Club, Box 176, Folder 7), and membership dropped during these conflicts.¹¹ After the Great Depression of 1929, membership fell from 810 members to 735 by the spring of 1931. While this was the lowest membership level since the club opened twenty-one years earlier, CAC President Guggenheim ensured members that even though membership had dropped, the CAC itself had adjusted its means accordingly and had so far come through the financial crisis in a good position. Though between April 1931 to April 1942, membership dropped to 516, the club was healthier financially and it still managed to entertain 2,339 Armed Service personnel through its Committee for Entertainment of Servicemen. The lowest CAC membership number during the war was 472 as of October 1942 as at least 110 members of the club were off in the Armed Services.¹²

In 1962, the mayor of New York City, Robert F. Wagner, quit the New York Athletic Club (NYAC) in protest of the non-existent admittance of African Americans to the club and the extremely low presence of Jews. Wagner's father, a New York Senator, had been a member of the NYAC and Wagner himself a member since the mid-1950s. The New York Times reported that Wagner had "heard allegations about the club's policies," but had not known any direct discrimination issues.¹³ Though it seems the issue of African American admission to the CAC may not have come up over the course of the club's history, the issue of women in men-only clubs would eventually affect all private clubs in New York City, including the CAC.

A committee was formed at the Board meeting of November 28, 1983 to study the practicality of women eating lunch with members in addition to their current ability to attend dinner functions at the CAC. Originally the minutes stated that this was due to overcrowding and lack of bathroom facilities, but the line was deleted from the final minutes. Ultimately, the CAC decided to keep the status quo and limit women in the club to dinner and weekend lunch.¹⁴The issue of women members in the club would be addressed consistently throughout the following years. In September 1984, the Board reported on the New York City Council passing an anti-discrimination law regarding private clubs. Originally, New York City's Human Rights Law did not extend to private clubs, but Local Law 63 upended that, concluding that only benevolent orders or religious corporations could limit members based on gender. A total of forty-two private clubs in New York collected $100,000 in funding to fight the legislation and challenge the constitutionality of the law.¹⁵By 1988, the issue had gone before the Supreme Court of the United States who upheld the New York City Council's Local Law 63 allowing women into private clubs.¹⁶ But the CAC still didn't comply with the new law as noted in the June 3, 1991 minutes where the question of allowing women into the club for lunch was brought up yet again. Minutes of January 27, 1992, stated that the Board read positive and negative responses regarding the decision to let women in for lunch.¹⁷The CAC attempted to keep its private club status intact by no longer receiving third-party checks.

In the meantime, the 1980s brought a decline in food service revenues, a mainstay of the club in addition to member dues. Prices for food climbed, while the Board refused to establish a minimum food and beverage pricing for members of the club. Expenses outweighed the revenues. By 1984, the CAC had steadily maintained over 1,000 members, but in comparison, the New York Athletic Club maintained 10,000 members and was able to generate more income for building upkeep, salaries, athletics, and programming. Ideas of raising prices by 7%-8% would put the club's restaurant over the prices of other private clubs in the city but food and beverage was averaging a loss of $100,000 per year and a solution to the revenue problem was needed. They agreed to hiring a consultant and increasing private party functions to address the deficit.¹⁸

By November 1985, the Board was discussing whether to sell its air rights (the ability to sell the space over buildings so that others can build over them), to the Whitney Museum of American Folk Art, then located at 49 West 53rd Street.¹⁹The CAC had approximately 20,000 square feet of air rights that could be sold. The Club's insurance payments went from $33,000 a year to over $100,000, depleting the CAC's cash.²⁰ At the same time, the club needed to update their equipment and maintain ongoing expenses for the facility. The club also wanted to expand their facilities and hoped that selling the air rights would help in this endeavor.

In 1989, the membership voted to approve the sale of air rights to the Whitney. While dining income had steadied due to private party income, the club lost money in other ways, for instance, the Message Department showed a loss of $76,000 for nine months, the building itself had a constant list of repairs and equipment replacement, and membership was declining. An increase in membership dues helped raise revenue.²¹In 1990, the Board reported that the some monies from the air rights sale had been received, an outstanding loan had been repaid, and the deal itself was progressing.²² However, after much delay, a devastating blow was handed to the club in 1992: after years of negotiating, the air rights deal with the Whitney officially was terminated.²³

An April 29, 1992 letter to the members talked specifically about the poor economy and struggles facing private clubs. Membership was steadily dropping, forcing the CAC to cut services due to loss of revenue, and the Club owed banking debts in the form of loans taken by the CAC for building maintenance. Board President Edward Dunay concluded, "We will continue to closely monitor our expenses, but generally, I feel that there is no area that we can further cut without a noticeable service impact on our services. We all joined the City Athletic Club because it was a special place, and I shall do everything I can to maintain the quality and service our members want and expect."²⁴In answer to the deficit, the Board decided to assess members an extra fee depending on how far they lived from the Club. Feedback from membership urged the Board to allow spouses use of the club with their husbands, to make the squash courts up to regulation so they could be rented out for tournaments, to make the dining room more creative and invite women for dinner, to create a master plan for the facility, and to establish a marketing committee. By 1993, an increase in dues and switching to a different bank improved the club's finances considerably.

In 1994, the Legal and Legislative Committee began looking into how to dispose of the assets of the club and disburse proceeds to members in case the club had to shut down.²⁵That same year, two members resigned over the club's continued no women policy.²⁶ Finally, on April 24, 1995, the first proposed bylaw amendment was approved by the Board, unanimously allowing women to become club members upon approval of the larger membership, though it wasn't brought to a full membership vote until two years later. Discussions were ongoing with the Harmonie Club to merge, and discussions to sell their building under the weight of a large property tax bill also began. By March of 1997, the Board continued discussions with other clubs in regards to merging, but ultimately, the club's options were limited, with one Board member stating that nothing that the Board was doing would work and that the club was doomed.²⁷

Talks began with the Museum of Modern Art to sell the CAC's air rights to the museum and a deal was struck in 1997, bringing an influx of cash to the Club. Also in 1997, women were officially voted in, and the first female member was approved.²⁸ Despite the changes, membership still declined and further merger attempts fell through. The City Athletic Club disbanded in 2002 and the building was sold to the Museum of Modern Art in 2003.

1908

Ralph Wolf

1909

Frederick Lewisohn

1909-1944

Solomon R. Guggenheim

1945

David A. Aronson

1946-1947

Albert H. Arnstein

1948-1957

Everett F. Gordon

1958

Henry Woog

1959-1961

Edwin Brucks

1962-1963

Burton A. Zorn

1964-1969

Milton Blum

1970-1973

Maurice J. Blumenthal

1974-1978

Milton Blum

1978-1983

Richard M. Kessler

1983-1988

Richard M. Ticktin

1988-1991

Harry H. Gordon

1991-1996

Edward Dunay

1996-1999

David Lurie

1999-2002

Michael Todres

2002

Jonathan Rosen

References

Gray, Christopher. "Streetscapes/50 West 54th Street, Former Home of the City Athletic Club; 1909 Jewish Response to Exclusion Based on Bias." New York Times, June 22, 2003. Accessed October 1, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/22/realestate/streetscapes-50-west-54th-street-former-home-city-athletic-club-1909-jewish.html