This article contains promotional content .(April 2023) |
Location | #10 Boathouse Row, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. |
---|---|
Home water | Schuylkill River |
Established | 1865 |
Navy admission | 1870 (reinstated 1879) [1] |
Former names | Washington Barge Club |
Key people | Melissa Hilton (President) |
Colors | Crimson and Battleship |
Affiliations | Friends Select, Sacred Heart, Academy of Notre Dame and Germantown Friends School |
Website | vesperboatclub.org |
Undine Barge Club | |
Location | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
Coordinates | 39°58′11″N75°11′07″W / 39.96962°N 75.18527°W |
Part of | Vesper Boat Club (ID87000821 [2] ) |
Added to NRHP | February 27, 1987 |
The Vesper Boat Club is an amateur rowing club located at #10 Boathouse Row in the historic Boathouse Row of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1865 as the Washington Barge Club, the club's name was changed to Vesper Boat Club in 1870.
Vesper's stated goal is "to produce Olympic champions." [3] Most recently,[ when? ] that goal was achieved by Devery Karz and Kathleen Bertko in the 2016 Summer Olympics.
The Vesper Boat Club had its beginning on Feb. 22, 1865 – a decade into the flourishing of rowing clubs on Philadelphia's Schuylkill River – with the founding of the Washington Barge Club. Five years later, on Jan 1, 1870, its name was changed to Vesper Boat Club.
Vesper's eight-oared shell took the gold medal in Paris at the 1900 Summer Olympics. The Vesper eight repeated its victory at the 1904 games in St. Louis. And at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Vesper's eight won again, making it the only rowing club in the United States to win the title three times.
Perhaps the best-known names associated with the Vesper Club are John B. Kelly Sr., an Irish-American brickworks owner who became influential in city politics and his son, John B. Kelly Jr., a city councilman and brother to Princess Grace of Monaco.
Kelly Sr. won Olympic Gold in the single scull in 1920. He also won gold medals in the double scull in 1920 and in 1924, both times with his cousin Paul Costello. As a laborer Kelly was barred from entering the 1920 Diamond Sculls at the Royal Henley Regatta.
It was two decades later that John B. Kelly Jr. would win that event, in 1947 and 1949. Kelly Jr. won the national singles championship eight times. At the time of his death in 1985, he. was president of the United States Olympic Committee.
Under the coaching of such greats as Jim Manning, Dr. Charles W. Riggall, Allan Rosenberg and Dietrich Rose, many other Vesper members have gone on to cumulatively win more national and international races than any club in the United States.
After a century of accomplishments for the men, Vesper in 1970 became the first men's club to organize a women's rowing team. (Philadelphia Girls Rowing Club in 1968 pioneered women's rowing in the United States.)
Vesper women have consistently won national championships and have regularly represented the United States in international competition. At the Montreal Olympics in 1976, six Vesper members were on the USA Olympic Rowing Team.
The present clubhouse was constructed in combination with neighboring Malta Boat Club, with the Vesper cornerstone dated 1865. The first building was completed in 1865. The boathouse was designed by noted Philadelphia architect G.H. Hewitt. The architecture—semi-attached ornamental Victorian Gothic—is typical of that period and members who were tradesmen constructed the original building with local building materials. The second boat bay addition was in 1898, and the last was completed in the early 1960s.
In 1873, Vesper, in conjunction with Malta Boat Club, built a 1+1⁄2-story boat house. [4] In 1898, a second floor and addition were added to Vesper, and other renovations have recently been completed. [4] Howard Egar designed the 1898 alterations and additions to the Vesper Boat Club. [5]
Rowing, often called crew in the United States, is the sport of racing boats using oars. It differs from paddling sports in that rowing oars are attached to the boat using rowlocks, while paddles are not connected to the boat. Rowing is divided into two disciplines: sculling and sweep rowing. In sculling, each rower holds two oars, one in each hand, while in sweep rowing each rower holds one oar with both hands. There are several boat classes in which athletes may compete, ranging from single sculls, occupied by one person, to shells with eight rowers and a coxswain, called eights. There are a wide variety of course types and formats of racing, but most elite and championship level racing is conducted on calm water courses 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) long with several lanes marked using buoys.
The Riverside Boat Club is a private, non-profit, rowing club on the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America. Founded in 1869 by workers from the Riverside Press.
The Detroit Boat Club was established in 1839, as a sport rowing club. It was first created on the Detroit River during a time in which Detroit was just starting to grow. The Detroit Boat Club is a member of the Detroit Regional Yacht-racing Association (DRYA).
John Brendan Kelly Jr., also known as Kell Kelly, was an American athlete, a rower, a four-time Olympian, and an Olympic medal winner. He was the son of triple Olympic gold medal winner Jack Kelly Sr., and the elder brother of the actress and Princess of Monaco, Grace Kelly. In 1947, Kelly was awarded the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States. He served a brief tenure as president of the United States Olympic Committee.
John Brendan Kelly Sr. was an American triple Olympic champion, the first in the sport of rowing. The Philadelphia-based Kelly also was a multimillionaire in the bricklaying and construction industry. He also was involved in politics, serving as Pennsylvania secretary of revenue and running unsuccessfully for mayor of Philadelphia in the 1935 Philadelphia mayoral election.
The Los Gatos Rowing Club was started in 1979 to provide what was then mostly an eastern U.S. sport, to the kids in the Santa Clara Valley. In the past 20 years, more than 2,000 kids from 15 different high schools have passed through the program. Many have gone onto colleges and universities to row competitively, several have received rowing scholarships, and a few have been selected for Junior National Camps and are trying for the Olympics.
The Schuylkill Navy is an association of amateur rowing clubs of Philadelphia. Founded in 1858, it is the oldest amateur athletic governing body in the United States. The member clubs are all on the Schuylkill River where it flows through Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, mostly on the historic Boathouse Row.
Michiel Bernhard Emiel Marie Bartman is a former rower from the Netherlands, who won a total of three Olympic medals during his career. A member of the Nereus Rowing Club from Amsterdam, he won the gold medal in Atlanta with the Holland Acht, followed by silver in Sydney and silver (Eights) once again in Athens. He also won three medals at the World Championships, bronze in the coxed four in 1994, silver with the Holland Acht in 1995 and silver in the Quadruple Sculls in 2001. Notably the Netherlands eight set the world record in the men's eight in Atlanta that stood until 2002. Bartman's earned notoriety within the international rowing community as a fierce competitor with a rare ability to time his best performances for the Olympic Games.
University of London Boat Club is the rowing club for the University of London and its member institutions, many of which also have their own boat clubs. The club has its boathouse on the Thames in Chiswick, London, UK. It is a designated High-Performance Programme funded by British Rowing.
Caryn Davies is an American rower. She is the winner of the 2023 Thomas Keller Medal, the most prestigious international award in the sport of rowing, and the only American to have ever won this award. She won gold medals as the stroke seat of the U.S. women's eight at the 2012 Summer Olympics and the 2008 Summer Olympics. In April 2015 Davies stroked Oxford University to victory in the first ever women's Oxford/Cambridge boat race held on the same stretch of the river Thames in London where the men's Oxford/Cambridge race has been held since 1829. She was the most highly decorated Olympian to take part in either [men's or women's] race. In 2012 Davies was ranked number 4 in the world by the International Rowing Federation. At the 2004 Olympic Games she won a silver medal in the women's eight. Davies has won more Olympic medals than any other U.S. oarswoman. The 2008 U.S. women's eight, of which she was a part, was named FISA crew of the year. Davies is from Ithaca, New York, where she graduated from Ithaca High School, and rowed with the Cascadilla Boat Club. Davies was on the Radcliffe College (Harvard) Crew Team and was a member on Radcliffe's 2003 NCAA champion Varsity 8, and overall team champion. In 2013, she was a visiting student at Pembroke College, Oxford, where she stroked the college men's eight to a victory in both Torpids and the Oxford University Summer Eights races. In 2013–14 Davies took up Polynesian outrigger canoeing in Hawaii, winning the State novice championship and placing 4th in the long-distance race na-wahine-o-ke-kai with her team from the Outrigger Canoe Club. In 2013, she was inducted into the New York Athletic Club Hall of Fame and in 2022 into the Harvard University Athletics Hall of Fame.
Bachelors Barge Club is an amateur rowing club located at #6 Boathouse Row in the historic Boathouse Row of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is the oldest continuously operating boathouse in the United States. It went through renovations as part of the "Light Boathouse Row" initiative, in which new LED lights were fitted to each of the boathouses. Bachelors Barge Club is currently home to several programs, including the Conestoga High School Crew Team, and the Drexel University Crew Team, among several others.
Fairmount Rowing Association is an amateur rowing club, founded in 1877. The facility, located at #2 Boathouse Row in the historic Boathouse Row of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Fairmount originally catered to blue-collar youths living in the Fairmount neighborhood. In 1916, after decades of being rejected, the club was finally allowed to join the Schuylkill Navy. The Club boasts being known as the "premiere club for Masters rowing in the mid-Atlantic region" and has produced several world class rowers.
Pennsylvania Barge Club is an amateur rowing club, situated along the historic Boathouse Row of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1861 and joined the Schuylkill Navy in 1865. The club's boathouse, at #4 Boathouse Row, is also known as the Hollenback House, named for William M. Hollenback Jr., who served as President of USRowing from 1979 until 1985.
Penn Athletic Club Rowing Association is an amateur rowing club located at #12 Boathouse Row in the historic Boathouse Row of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Penn AC was founded in 1871 as the West Philadelphia Boat Club. Penn AC has been a destination for elite rowers looking to make the US National Team, ever since John B. Kelly Sr. joined Penn AC after a schism with his former club, Vesper.
Undine Barge Club is an amateur rowing club located at #13 Boathouse Row in the historic Boathouse Row along the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The club was founded in 1856. Undine was not initially listed as a founder of the Schuylkill Navy, but is now considered a founder because an Undine member, Mr. B. F. Van dyke, was elected to represent the club as secretary treasurer of the Navy from its birth in 1858. In 1860, Undine purchased Keystone Barge Club's boat and equipment, as Keystone had disposed of its boathouse.
Gillin Boat Club is the rowing program for St. Joseph's University Rowing and St. Joseph's Prep Rowing. It is situated at the 1,000-meter mark of the Schuylkill River race course in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Gillin Boat Club was admitted to the Schuylkill Navy in 2004, by a unanimous vote of the Navy's members.
Esther Ruth Lofgren is an American rower and an Olympic gold medalist. She won the gold medal in the women's eight at the 2012 Summer Games in London. Lofgren is a graduate of Harvard College, where she rowed for Radcliffe and was a two-time All-American. She is an eight-time member of the U.S. National Rowing Team and a seven-time World Championship medalist.
The Thomas Eakins Head of the Schuylkill Regatta is a rowing race held annually during the last weekend in October on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The HOSR is the final race in the Fall Fury series, which includes the Head of the Ohio and the Head of the Connecticut. Along with the Head of the Charles and the Head of the Connecticut, the HOSR is considered one of the three “fall classics.” The HOSR is one of the marquee races in the Philadelphia Classic Regatta Series, which also includes the Stotesbury Cup Regatta, the Philadelphia Scholastic Rowing Championship, the Schuylkill Navy Regatta, and the Independence Day Regatta.
Regattas such as the Head of the Charles in Boston and the Head of the Schuylkill in Philadelphia are to the rowing world what the New York Marathon and the Boston Marathon are to running.
Grace Latz is an American rower, Olympian, artist, and announcer.
Simon Carcagno is an American rower who competed in lightweight rowing. He won a gold medal in the eights at the 2008 World Rowing Championships and placed third in the coxless pairs in 2003. He also won a silver medal in the coxless fours at the 2007 Pan American Games. He represented the United States as an alternate at the 2004 Summer Olympics and the 2008 Summer Olympics.
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