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Manhattan's giant (4,000 members) University Club, founded in 1865 by a group of young Yale men for the purpose of promoting literature and the arts, has fought hard and successfully against the tide with a wide variety of special activities. Not so well off are the more socially desirable and therefore much smaller clubs, such as the Knickerbocker and the Union, which have to run relatively large buildings with low membership. When expenses cannot be met by income alone, many clubs look hopefully to their wealthier members. Four years ago, the handsome Knickerbocker is said to have been rescued from a merger with the 126-year-old Union Club by a timely check from Member Nelson Rockefeller.
Such clubs as Manhattan's Links and Brook are better off because, in addition to having small (and wealthy) memberships, they have only relatively modest town houses to keep up. Since its founding in 1903, the Brook has made a fetish of service. It is always open. And until shortly after World War II, a member could order a full-course dinner at any hour of the day or night. Today members can still get sandwiches at any hour.
The opposite kind of well-heeled security is represented by Manhattan's large but Social Registered Racquet & Tennis Club, whose 2,500 members indulge in almost every form of indoor exercise (including elbow bending) in a looming, block-long clubhouse on Park Avenue. In its Dec. 31, 1961 financial statement, the Racquet Club reported assets of $1,472,370.10—including $259,000 in cash.
One Exception. The winds of change are blowing hard through clubland, and some venerable structures will certainly be blown away. But many more will withstand even the influx of females, the high cost of help and other vicissitudes. For a man's club is not only his refuge from his non-equals. As one clubman explained recently: "At the turn of the century and on into the '20s, the things that were important were your school, your college, your club, the dances, trips to Europe and where you went in the summer. Now all of these things are available to almost anyone and everyone, with one exception: the club."