University Club

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The University Club of New York is a private social club located at 1 West 54th Street at Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York. It received its charter in 1865, but the origins date back to the autumn of 1861 when a group of college friends, principally Yale alumni, founded the club hoping to extend their collegial ties. The club is not affiliated with any other University Club or college alumni clubs.HistoryThe first meeting was held in the rooms of the Columbia College Law School, where Theodore Dwight, the Club's first president and a Hamilton College alumnus, was a professor. After several moves, the club took over an existing townhouse at 26th Street and Madison Avenue, in 1883.Founded to celebrate the union of social duty and intellectual life, the Club states in its charter that the purpose of the organization shall be the "promotion of Literature and Art by establishing and maintaining a Library, Reading Room and Gallery of Art, and by such other means as shall be expedient and proper for such purposes." In addition to its many grand architectural features, the University Club hosts one of New York's great private art collections, with a particularly strong group of works by great American painters such as Gilbert Stuart and Childe Hassam, who featured the Club's facade in his work Allies Day, May 1917.