[2] It featured an 1100-seat auditorium, rehearsal space, apartments, and two gigantic 30-foot long murals on canvas by the artist Robert Frederick Blum in the neo-classical style that characterized the Golden Age.

The Club was dispossessed in 1911 after Clark's widow died,[3] and her heirs sought to make some money by leasing the building to the Kinemacolor Company of America, an early venture into color movies.

The first significant conductor of the Mendelssohn Glee Club, Joseph Mosenthal, helped to popularize the group through his dramatic leadership and musical vision.

Mosenthal, who served for 30 years and composed several ambitious works for the Club, exhausted himself getting to rehearsal during a snowstorm in January 1896 and died on a sofa in Mendelssohn Hall, directly beneath his portrait by John White Alexander.

Among the young female soloists who have been part of the Club's performances ever since President Arthur's wife are some who went on to be Metropolitan Opera stars, like Licia Albanese, Aprile Millo, and Helen Traubel.