St. Anthony Club

East of Madison on East 28th Street
James Renwick, 1879; alterations: J. A. Moore, 1899 and 1918

Like Madison Square Park, Madison Avenue was named after James Madison, the fourth President of the United States. The Avenue begins at 23rd Street and extends to the Madison Avenue Bridge at 138th Street. When the Manhattan street grid was mandated in 1811, there was no avenue between Fourth (now Park) and Fifth Avenues. Madison Avenue was carved out in the 1840s due to the wide distance between Fourth and Fifth Avenues and in order to create more building lots with avenue frontage. This southern section of Madison Avenue is characterized by its fine assortment of large-scale hotels, lofts and office buildings.

The St. Anthony Club, a Renaissance-inspired building that originally had a pyramidal roof that was removed when an extra one and a half stories were added in 1899. The red and yellow brick building was constructed for Columbia University’s Delta Psi fraternity and literary society, which occupied the building until 1912.

 

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