In February the Penn Club of New York’s home on West 44th Street was officially announced as a historic landmark, and it marked a happy outcome for a building that’s had its ups and downs.
When construction finished in May 1901, the 11-story Beaux Arts design flaunted its height, standing alone in the clubhouse district then taking shape between West 43rd and 44th streets. Originally the home of the Yale Club, it was passed on to a fraternity before a bankruptcy filing during the Depression brought it perilously close to foreclosure and a planned renovation that would have “modernized” the ornate façade. It did a stint of government work during World War II, housing the Maritime Service Center. After falling vacant for a number of years, it was donated as “surplus property” to Touro College, but plans to open a law school were interrupted when the institution underwent a series of financial scandals. Penn finally purchased the building in 1989 as a permanent home for the Penn Club, and under this new banner the doors opened in 1994 [“Gazetteer,” May|June 2004].
In the Penn Club of New York’s heyday in the 1920s (when two leased townhouses on East 50th Street served as its home), a direct telegraph wire provided live updates from Franklin Field. Today, Quaker football and basketball are carried by satellite feed.
