The 1917 Grolier Club - 47 East 60th Street

Whitlaw Reid was editor of the New-York Tribune when he attended the first gathering of eight erudite men in the home of Robert Hoe on the evening of January 23, 1884.  Like Reid and Hoe, they were mostly involved in publishing and printing.  The new group called itself the Grolier Club, named after Jean Grolier de Servieres, a 16th century French book collector.  Reid's newspaper explained, "They talk of books and nothing but books--editions, dates, printers, bookbinders, illustrations, book plates, autographs."

The original membership of eight would grow prodigiously.  In 1890, the club moved into an impressive structure at 29 East 32nd Street, designed by Charles W. Romeyn.  That, too, would eventually become insufficient.  In 1916, two high-stooped brownstones at 47  and 49 East 60th Street were acquired and Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue was commissioned to design the Grolier's third home.

Goodhue was better known for his ecclesiastical designs.  In fact, his latest, the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, was under construction on Lexington Avenue at the time.  As Romeyn had done, Goodhue gave the clubhouse a domestic tenor, able to slip inconspicuously into the still residential neighborhood.  His restrained, neo-Georgian design included a sumptuous marble entrance with fluted pilasters, and a cartouche and swags over the arched transom.

Faced in red Flemish bond brick, the building's 18th century motif included a delicate, full-width iron balcony at the second floor, layered keystones at the third, and a marble cornice above the fourth.  The fifth floor was unexpectedly stoic.

When the club opened in 1917, it was flanked by high-end private residences.  photograph by Wurts Bros., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Construction was completed early in December 1917 at a cost of $129,348.22 (just under $2.7 million in 2025).  The New York Times tepidly called Goodhue's building "attractive," adding that it would provide, "better facilities for members and the large library of works on the art of printing than were available in the old home."

Even before officially moving into its new headquarters, the Grolier Club staged an exhibition.  On December 7, The New York Times reported, "To commemorate the completion of the Grolier Club's new home at 47 and 49 East Sixtieth Street...an exhibition of books and miniatures from Persia and the Levant was opened yesterday."

With World War I raging in Europe, on December 13 The Sun reported, "Five new workrooms were opened yesterday by the American Fund for French Wounded to meet the rush of women volunteer workers on surgical dressings."  Among the five locations were the new Grolier Club.

The Grolier Club Report, April 1918 (copyright expired)

At the first official meeting of the club within its new home, president Arthur H. Scribner described, "a club-house ideally suited to our requirements in location, spaciousness and architectural beauty, while retaining enough of the feeling of our old club-house to put us at once at home."

The Exhibition Hall (above) and Library.  The American Printer, June 5, 1925.

Although the membership of the Grolier was composed only of Caucasian males, Troy H. Hinton, was an integral cog in the workings of the Grolier Club.  Born in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1859, he arrived in New York City in 1883.  According to The New York Age on January 18, 1930, "During most of this time he was employed as the steward of the Grolier Club, a wealthy white organization."  After serving the club for nearly half a century, Hinton died on January 7, 1930.

The first Black member of the Grolier Club was not alive when Hinton died.  Herbert H. Johnson was born in 1936.  A book designer for major publishers, he became an educator and curator of the Melbert B. Cary Collection of the Rochester Institute of Technology.  He amassed a personal collection that focused on book design and typography.  On April 15, 1970, the Grolier Club opened an exhibition titled, "Bruce Rogers: Sixty Years of Book Design."  (Bruce Rogers had been a member of the Grolier.)  The exhibition was curated by Herbert H. Johnson.  According to Bruce and Mary Crawford and Scott Ellwood, club curators, "a few days before the show opened, [member John M.] Crawford sent the first letter nominating Johnson to membership."

By the early 1960s, the original membership of eight had grown to 600.  In May 1964, in celebration of the club's 80th anniversary, the members held an auction at the Park-Bernet Galleries.  The New York Times reported, "about 185 members donated rarities from the 15th to the 20th century."  The article said, "The auction raised $76,385 for renovation of the club's building at 47 East 60th Street."

The regular exhibitions at the Grolier Club fascinated New Yorkers throughout the decades.  One, perhaps, stood out.  On April 21, 1971, The New York Times reported that a Mayan relic, part of the "Ancient Mayan Caligraphy" exhibition, "is expected to throw new light on the religion and astrological philosophy of the ancient Mayan culture of Mexico and Central America."  The codex, "which is composed of bark cloth," was hailed by Dr. Michael D. Coe of Yale University as, "an important find...that furnishes us with additional pictorial information on the Venus calendar and its influence on Mayan religion and astrology."  He called the fragment, "nothing less than a miracle" that it had survived.

A $4.6 million renovation to the Grolier Club's interiors was completed in 2018.  Designed by Ann Beha Architects, it preserved Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue's integrity, while bringing the club's functionality into the 21st century.  On January 17, 2019, Jennifer Schuessler of The New York Times wrote, "Last month it celebrated the centennial of its Georgian-style building and the renovation of its ground-floor exhibition hall."  

The renovated Exhibition Hall, photograph by Ann Beha Architects.

The Grolier Club members continue to be passionate book lovers, and New Yorkers still gravitate to its dignified clubhouse to absorb its regular exhibitions.

photographs by the author

The 1890 Grolier Club - 29 East 32nd Street

photo via The Grolier Club

The during last years of the 19th century, gentlemen’s clubs dotted New York.  These comfortable escapes from business (and home) provided gentlemen an outlet in which share common interests such as yachting, tennis and racquets, shared college ties, or collecting.  A very specialized gentlemen's club was the Grolier.

On the cold evening of January 23, 1884, eight gentlemen arrived at 11 East 36th Street, the residence of Robert Hoe.  Hoe owned the world’s largest printing press manufacturing company.  That night the assemblage of highly educated men formed the Grolier Club, named after Jean Grolier de Servieres, a 16th century French book collector.  Each member was a connoisseur of “book arts.”  And each felt that the arts of printing and typography in America were in serious decline.

Although the membership included men from other professions–bankers and lawyers, for instance–most were publishers and printers.  Whitelaw Reid was the editor of the New-York Tribune, William Laffan published The New York Sun, and Theodore De Vinne of De Vinne Press on Lafayette Street was perhaps the foremost printer in the country.  Other members were involved in publishing houses such as Scribner, Harper, and Appleton.

Initially, members met on Thursday nights in rented rooms in the Mott Memorial Hall at 64 Madison Avenue.  Reid’s paper, The New-York Tribune, said, “They talk of books and nothing but books–editions, dates, printers, bookbinders, illustrations, book plates, autographs.”  For outsiders their weekly discussions would have surely induced sound sleep.

Within six years the club had grown and a permanent clubhouse was necessary.  Included in the club’s constitution was the requirement of maintaining “a Club building for the safekeeping of its property, and otherwise suitable for the purposes of the club.”

Charles W. Romeyn received the commission to design a permanent clubhouse.  He designed a Romanesque Revival-style building at 29 East 32nd Street clad in tan Roman brick with contrasting red sandstone.  Romeyn gave the edifice a purposefully domestic look, so that it could slip innocuously into the residential block.  Clad in tan Roman brick with contrasting red sandstone, its bold stone arches defined the first floor ornamented by carved stone with Celtic-type basketweave designs.  The second floor was dominated by a great arched window, mirroring the shape of the arches directly below, while on the third floor, a wide run of four side-by-side windows allowed sunlight to pour in.

It was not an all-male refuge, however.  Women, too, discussed their passion of books. On February 21, 1896, The New York Times reported, “Miss Louise Both-Hendriksen read a paper on ‘Book Plates’ in which she discussed ancient and modern plates, French and English principally, and gave the distinctions in style and the underlying reasons therefore. She also gave the names of the prominent book-plate artists of the present day.”

The same night, Theodore De Vinne criticized modern printing methods.  He complained that, “in his younger days he had been taught that anything that was difficult, eccentric, or striking was fine printing, but that idea has now largely been outgrown.”

Monthly exhibitions were staged at the Club.  On April 16, 1898, The Times reported, “For its April monthly exhibition the Grolier Club…has arranged a display of title pages and frontispieces of books published in the sixteen and seventeenth centuries.  There are 271 numbers in the catalogue, which, as usual, has been compiled with great care.”

Despite its impressive building, encroaching commerce forced the Club to move on.  On December 27, 1914, The New York Times reported, “the Grolier Club is preparing to move to a site which will be less disturbed by the activities of trade than is its home in Thirty-second Street, near Madison Avenue."

The newspaper said that when the clubhouse was built, “Twelve-story business lofts in the choice Murray Hill district or on Fourth or Madison Avenues were not thought of at that time.  Now, however, a twelve-story building on Madison Avenue corner of Thirty-second Street overtops the modest Grolier Club, and just to the east is another huge building of the same size.  The Grolier Club with its bookish atmosphere, looks out of place, and this fact has led the members to vote to sell the house.”

The New York Times went on to describe the library of works on book making, paper, etching, printing, illustrating and binding, “what is said to be the largest and finest collection in the world, outside of the national libraries of France and England.”  The collection at the time numbered about 12,000 volumes.

Although the newspaper predicted that the clubhouse would be razed, it survived.  Converted to office space, it served as the headquarters of women’s garment trade organizations then, in the 1930s became home to the Building Employees Union.

Actor and dancer Gilbert Kiamie purchased the old Grolier Club and used it as a private home in the 1940s, after which it reverted to office space again.

In 1990, the building became “The Grolier,” a members-only supper club, operated by Henri Kessler and Peter Kotite.  The owners spent more than $1 million on interior renovations.  While most of the interior detailing had been stripped away during its use as office space, the Grolier retained its original fireplaces.  The building was landmarked in 1970.