East and west from Fifth Avenue, the spine of Manhattan island, stand innumerable other trophies of the Civil War and the money that flowed from it. The Metropolitan Club was founded when a business colleague of J. P Morgan’s was blackballed because of bad manners at the Union Club, over on Park Avenue, then the most socially distinguished club in New York, named (obviously) in honor of the Union victory. Furious, Morgan commissioned White to build an even grander club that Morgan’s associate could join: the Metropolitan. Down on Park Avenue we have the Union League Club. Though not explicitly connected with the war, other buildings of the belle epoque likewise participate in this architectural epic, notably the great clubs of Midtown: the Century (White), Players (White), Racquet and Tennis (McKim), Harvard (McKim), the New York Yacht Club (Warren and Wetmore), Yale (Rogers), and University (McKim). One purpose of the clubs was to reward with membership those men of recent, war- generated wealth who had managed to learn civilized manners. Unlike other distinguished cities such as Boston and Gramercy Park Hotel
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