The Automobile Club of America (ACA) was the first automobile club formed in America in 1899. [1] The club was dissolved in 1932 following the Great Depression and declining membership.
On June 7, 1899, a group of gentlemen auto racers met at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan and founded the Automobile Club of America. [2] The Automobile Club of America was officially incorporated on August 15, 1899 in order to "maintain a social club devoted to the sport of automobilism and to its development throughout the country". [3] The original directors of the club were: Frank C. Hollister, Charles R. Flint, George Moore Smith, Winslow E. Busby, Whitney Lyon, George F. Chamberlain, Homer W. Hedge, and William Henry Hall of New York City and V. Everit Macy of Scarborough-on-Hudson. [3] While it was called the Automobile Club of America, it was really a local organization. [4]
In 1907, the organization built its clubhouse, which was essentially a garage at 247 West 54th Street with a terra-cotta exterior. Architect Ernest Flagg "designed a sophisticated factorylike building with great banks of metal windows, set in a rich screen of glazed terra cotta, particularly fulsome on the second floor. There, a double-height assembly hall, modeled on one at Château de Cheverny in the Loire Valley, ran 100 feet across the building’s front, adjacent to a grill room on the same scale at the back." [4] In 1909, after the number of members looking for garage space doubled, the club built an addition on West 55th Street. By 1910, membership in the club was up to 1,000. In 1923, however, the club sold the complex and the original buildings were converted to other uses before being torn down in 2008. [4]
The club relocated to the former Fisk-Harkness townhouse at 12 East 53rd Street and separately negotiated blocks of space in garages around Manhattan. [4] [5] [6] The Fisk–Harkness House had 28,000 square feet (2,600 m2), which represented an increase of 8,000 square feet (740 m2) over the club's existing space in the automobile district south of Columbus Circle. [6] [7] Furthermore, 12 East 53rd Street was close to several other clubhouses along Fifth Avenue, including those of the University Club, Union Club, Calumet Club, Knickerbocker Club, and Metropolitan Club. [8] [9] The Club received a $190,000 mortgage on the new building in early 1924. [10] After undergoing $100,000 worth of renovations, [11] [12] the clubhouse was dedicated in April 1925. [13] [14] The clubhouse was among the locations where New York license plates were distributed. [15] [16] Events hosted at the house included a luncheon with a League of Nations Non-Partisan Association official, [17] an annual session of the National Highway Traffic Administration, [18] as well as bridge games and tea dances. [19] [20]
The club had a peak membership of 6,000, but following the Great Depression in the United States, several thousand members left the club. As a result, in January 1932, the Automobile Club's governors voted to dissolve the club. [11] [12] The East 53rd Street building was placed for sale at a foreclosure auction that August, [21] and it was sold to the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York for $50,000. [22] The building was later renovated into the showroom of art dealer Symons Galleries in 1938. [23]
Among the prominent members of the Club were:
The University Club of New York is a private social club at 1 West 54th Street and Fifth Avenue in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Founded to celebrate the union of social duty and intellectual life, the club was chartered in 1865 for the "promotion of literature and art". The club is not affiliated with any other University Club or college alumni clubs. The club is considered one of the most prestigious in New York City.
The Royalton Hotel is a hotel at 44 West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. The hotel, opened in 1898, was designed by architecture firm Rossiter & Wright and developed by civil engineer Edward G. Bailey. The 13-story building is made of brick, stone, terracotta, and iron. The hotel's lobby, which connects 43rd and 44th Streets, contains a bar and restaurant. The upper stories originally featured 90 apartments, but these were replaced with 205 guestrooms when Philippe Starck and Gruzen Samton Steinglass Architects converted the Royalton to a boutique hotel in the 1980s.
3 East 57th Street, originally the L. P. Hollander Company Building, is a nine-story commercial building in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is along the northern side of 57th Street, just east of Fifth Avenue. 3 East 57th Street, constructed from 1929 to 1930, was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon in an early Art Deco style.
The Engineering Societies' Building, also known as 25 West 39th Street, is a commercial building at 25–33 West 39th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, United States. Located one block south of Bryant Park, it was constructed in 1907 along with the adjoining Engineers' Club. The building was designed by Herbert D. Hale, of the firm Hale & Rogers, along with Henry G. Morse, in the neo-Renaissance style. It served as the clubhouse of the United Engineering Societies, composed of its three founding societies: the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), American Institute of Mining Engineers (AIME), and American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE). The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) joined the partnership in 1917.
The Peninsula New York is a historic luxury hotel at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 55th Street in Manhattan, New York City. Built in 1905 as the Gotham Hotel, the structure was designed by Hiss and Weekes in the neo-classical style. The hotel is part of the Hong Kong–based Peninsula Hotels group, which is owned by Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels (HSH).
224 West 57th Street, also known as the Argonaut Building and formerly as the Demarest and Peerless Company Building, is a commercial building on the southeast corner of Broadway and 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, just south of Columbus Circle. The building consists of two formerly separate structures, the A. T. Demarest & Company Building and the Peerless Motor Car Company Building, both used by automobile companies. Both structures were designed by Francis H. Kimball and erected by the George A. Fuller Company with similar Gothic Revival and Romanesque Revival architectural details.
218 West 57th Street is a building on 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It was designed by Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz in the French Renaissance Revival style, with an annex built to designs by Eidlitz and Andrew C. McKenzie. The building served as the headquarters of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) from 1897 to 1917.
The Penn Club of New York is an American private, social club located on Clubhouse Row in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, as a designated landmark. The club is headquartered at 30 West 44th Street, a 14-story building originally occupied by the Yale Club of New York City. For numerous consecutive terms, The Penn Club won the Platinum Club of America award, placing it in the top 3% among 6,000 clubs in the U.S. for perceived excellence, and ranked #14 best city club in the U.S., and #2 city club in New York City.
5 West 54th Street is a commercial building in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is along 54th Street's northern sidewalk between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. The four-story building was designed by R. H. Robertson in the Italian Renaissance Revival style and was constructed between 1897 and 1899 as a private residence. It is the easternmost of five consecutive townhouses erected along the same city block during the 1890s, the others being 7, 11, 13 and 15 West 54th Street. The first floor is clad with rusticated blocks of limestone, while the other floors contain buff-colored brick trimmed with limestone.
10 West 56th Street is a commercial building in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is along 56th Street's southern sidewalk between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. The six-story building was designed by Warren and Wetmore in the French Renaissance Revival style. It was constructed in 1901 as a private residence, one of several on 56th Street's "Bankers' Row".
12 West 56th Street is a consular building in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, housing the Consulate General of Argentina in New York City. It is along 56th Street's southern sidewalk between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. The four-and-a-half story building was designed by McKim, Mead & White in the Georgian Revival style. It was constructed between 1899 and 1901 as a private residence, one of several on 56th Street's "Bankers' Row".
30 West 56th Street is a building in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is along 56th Street's southern sidewalk between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. The five-story building was designed by C. P. H. Gilbert in the French Renaissance Revival style. It was constructed between 1899 and 1901 as a private residence, one of several on 56th Street's "Bankers' Row".
12 East 53rd Street, also the Fisk–Harkness House, is a building in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is along the south side of 53rd Street between Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue. The six-story building was designed by Griffith Thomas and was constructed in 1871. It was redesigned in the Tudor-inspired Gothic Revival style in 1906 by Raleigh C. Gildersleeve.
647 Fifth Avenue, originally known as the George W. Vanderbilt Residence, is a commercial building in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is along the east side of Fifth Avenue between 51st Street and 52nd Street. The building was designed by Hunt & Hunt as part of the "Marble Twins", a pair of houses at 645 and 647 Fifth Avenue. The houses were constructed between 1902 and 1905 as Vanderbilt family residences. Number 645 was occupied by William B. Osgood Field, while number 647 was owned by George W. Vanderbilt and rented to Robert Wilson Goelet; both were part of the Vanderbilt family by marriage.
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The Sofia is a condominium building at the corner of Columbus Avenue and 61st Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was constructed from 1929 to 1930 and was designed by the firm of Jardine, Hill & Murdock in the Art Deco style for Kent Automatic Garages. The Sofia is 27 stories tall; the first nine stories above the ground level are used as offices, while the top 17 stories contain residential condominiums. The building is a New York City designated landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places.
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... the Automobile Club of America has decided to ... close its doors forever, [demonstrating] the change that has taken place during the past twenty years ...