Union League Club, Park Avenue, 1931.

The Union League Club was founded in 1863 by a group of prominent New Yorkers who shared a firm commitment to the Union cause in the Civil War. The members were part of a breakaway from the Union Club, which had maintained support for Confederate Members.

Frederick Law Olmsted was among the Club’s founders, and later members were a veritable directory of the city’s Gilded Age society, including John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and several former and future Presidents of the United States.

The Club first occupied a building on Union Square, followed by clubhouses on Madison Square and Fifth Avenue. The present neo-Classical building on Park Avenue was designed by architect Benjamin Wistar Morris III, and erected on a lot assembled by J.P. Morgan and his son J.P. “Jack” Morgan, Jr. The new club opened in February, 1931, with the first four floors dedicated to social and dining spaces, and the upper levels including 64 bedrooms.

The club, which continues to operate today, extended membership to women in 1988, and was designated a New York City landmark in 2011.