August 28, 2019
Date and Time
Tue, September 10, 2019
6:00 PM – 10:00 PM EDT
Location
4 W 43rd St
4 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036
More information and tickets here.
No. 4 West 43rd St. was built as the Hotel Renaissance in 1894 to the design of architect Clarence S. Luce. It is a nineteenth-century building that contributed to the transformation of the neighborhood from an area of stables and trolley yards into a district of social clubs and hotels. The renaissance revival style of the building is an elegant response to McKim, Mead & White’s earlier Century Club across the street. Clarence Luce was a noted designer of residence and hotels, and this building is an interpretation of the Renaissance palazzo-type in Beaux-Arts terms. Its monumental double-height columnar portico projects from a two-story rusticated base with historic storefronts. Above, the broad facade is articulated by simple windows, rhythmically repeated. The fifth-floor windows are more elaborately treated: each has a bracketed balustrade at the bottom, and is topped by a segmental-arched pediment carried on stone columns. A series of smaller windows flanked by cartouche panels forms a decorative attic frieze beneath a modillioned cornice and a crowning balustrade. The building became the Columbia University Club from 1915 until 1973 when it was purchased by the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, which hosts dozens of international NGOs, under 501(c)(3) status, serving the local community and the world.
