Racquet and Tennis Club, ca. 1918. While the Racquet and Tennis Club was formed in 1890 by the merger of the Racquet Court Club and the Racquet Tennis Club, it initially occupied a clubhouse at 27 West 43d Street. It wasn't until 30 years later that it moved uptown. Offered a lease by one of its members, construction began in 1916 on its Charles McKim designed Italian Renaissance Park Avenue Clubhouse . Completed in 1918, this five story building was built with stone and brick over a steel frame, occupying a full block of Park Avenue. Though the clubhouse provides its members with a dining room, pool, gym, and other amenities, it is most notable for its racquet sports facilities. These include squash and racquets courts, but more unusually two court tennis (or real tennis) courts of the 43 extant in the world. Moreover, it served as the site of a conference in 1931 that standardized and set the rules of the board game Backgammon. Controversially, the Racquet and Tennis Club has adhered to a strict male only policy, only permitting women to attend social events at the club. This has provoked some outrage, as when Evelyn Davis, a notable female Court Tennis player, requested to train for the Women's World Tennis Championship and was flatly refused.

In the closing decades of the 19th century, New York underwent a profound physical and cultural transformation. Fueled by the wealth of the exploding financial and manufacturing sectors, the city rapidly evolved into a world-class metropolis. The bold ambitions of civic and business leaders, architects, and engineers of the era manifested in landmarks such as the vast Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the stately U.S. Custom House, the towering Municipal Building, and the original terminus of New York City’s first official subway line—the ornate City Hall stop. The sweeping interior spaces common to all of these structures, and hundreds of others, depended upon a venerable Mediterranean building technology adapted to contemporary American construction: arched tile ceilings—or vaults—that were not only self-supporting but could also bear the weight of floors or roofs above them. These vaults were designed and built by a single New York firm, founded by Spanish immigrant Rafael Guastavino (1842-1908) and later headed by his son Rafael Jr. (1872-1950). The Guastavinos’ patented system for building domes and vaults involved multiple layers of thin ceramic tiles bonded with quick-drying mortar. The resulting structures were not only exceptionally strong, but also lightweight, easy to build, and inherently beautiful, thanks to intricate patterns of exposed tile that formed finished, decorative surfaces. Guastavino vaults figured prominently in more than 1,000 projects across the nation, including 200 in Manhattan alone. During its 73-year history, the Guastavino Company helped build some of the most impressive interior spaces in America—veritable palaces for the people. This list based on MCNY's exhibition Palaces for the People, contains many of Guastavino's masterpieces in the five boroughs, both those that remain and those that have been lost to the wrecking ball.

Racquet and Tennis Club Building ARCHITECT: McKim, Mead & White; William S. Richardson DATE: 1916-19 STYLE: Neo-Italian Renaissance The Racquet and Tennis Club Building, a superb example of the work of the architectural firm of Mckim, Mead & White, was built in 1916-18 as the third home of the Racquet and Tennis Club. Dominating the blockfront of Park Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Streets, the building is a notable essay in neo-Italian Renaissance architecture, embodying the principles of Beaux-Arts design to create a structure which is appropriate to the site and to the needs of the Racquet and Tennis Club.

Racquet and Tennis Club ca. 1975 This very fine adaptation of a Florentine palazzo was the work of McKim, Mead & White. Although it contains all the indoor facilities of a modern American athletic club it is a handsome addition to the broad thoroughfare of Park Avenue. Despite the fact that it is low, it is completely in scale with its contemporaries and with the giants that today surround it.