Princeton Club of New York, The

Princeton Club of New York, The, has had four homes since its incorporation on December 7, 1899. It occupied the old Vanderbilt house at the corner of 34th Street and Park Avenue for eight years before moving into its second home, the former residence of the architect Stanford White, on Gramercy Park North at Lexington Avenue, where it remained until the outbreak of the First World War. During the war, when younger members were absent in war service, older members enjoyed the hospitality of the Yale Club on Vanderbilt Avenue at 44th Street; in gratitude they endowed the Princeton Club of New York scholarship at Yale. Beginning in 1922, the Princeton Club made its third home at 39th Street and Park Avenue in an old Murray Hill mansion with a ten-story annex. At different times Princeton shared these facilities with the Brown and Dartmouth Clubs. It occupied this home for almost forty years until the early 1960s, when it built its present nine-story limestone clubhouse at 15 West 43rd Street under the leadership of its president, Frank H. Connor '25. Ground was broken on June 15, 1961; while awaiting completion of the building, rooms were leased in the Columbia University Club across the street. The new clubhouse, which was opened in February 1963, provided a family club, with facilities open to wives of alumni (and, after coeducation, husbands of alumnae), and certain other family members. In the mid-seventies, when many university clubs were consolidating, the membership of the Columbia Club moved across the street to join forces with Princeton. In the spring of 1978, the Club's membership totaled more than 6,000.

An outstanding feature of the Club is the Princeton Library in New York, an educational corporation chartered by the New York Board of Regents, which in cooperation with the University Library maintains a 9,OOO-volume library on the fifth floor of the Club for the use of all Princeton alumni and faculty, and other accredited scholars. The Library also sponsors informal lecture evenings with faculty, students, and alumni as guest speakers.

From Alexander Leitch, A Princeton Companion, copyright Princeton University Press (1978).