The Players Club

We recently took an Untapped Cities-sponsored tour of the Players Club, a members-only social club founded in 1888 by famed Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth. Booth had the unfortunate distinction of also being the brother of John Wilkes Booth, who was also an actor—one whose career was overshadowed when he became Abraham Lincoln's assassin in 1865.

The Players Club doesn't just admit actors, in fact the entire idea of the club is to allow actors to socialize with people from other professions including prominent businessmen, writers, artists and many others in art- and non-art-related fields. The long list of famous current and past residents includes Mark Twain, Kevin Spacey, Rue McClanahan, Carol Burnett, Liza Minnelli, Walter Cronkite, Ethan Hawke and Jimmy Fallon. The Players Club didn't allow women to be fully participating members until 1989.

The building is located at 16 Gramercy Park, and its interior and part of its exterior were designed by Stanford White. The Club maintains some of the last remaining gaslights in the city and is neighbors with the National Arts Club. The interior is just as fancy as you'd imagine a private arts club to be, filled with portraits of past members and stocked with treasures from the acting world, including a real human skull used by Booth in his portrayal of Hamlet and various costumes and other props.

From the beginning, Booth retained an upper floor of the club as his private residence. He lived there until his death in 1893, and the room has remained just as he left it ever since. Our tour guide was really lovely, although two people were not allowed on our tour because they were wearing shorts—apparently a violation of the strict dress code. While I do have issues with the snooty exclusivity, I do appreciate a chance to peek into a world usually so foreign to me—especially one filled with interesting people, world-class art and even a few life/death masks.