Nippon Club (Manhattan)

[1] The only Japanese traditional gentlemen's club in the United States, the Nippon Club's dual purpose is to help enhance the unity of the Japanese community in New York City and to help develop evolving relationships with the American people.

"The object of the Club shall be to promote the social enjoyment of its members and to provide them with mental and physical recreation."

Honorary members (13 men, mostly Japanese living in Japan or other countries, also General Stewart L. Woodford, New York).

Addresses outside of New York City include Tokyo, Japan; London, England; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and San Francisco, California.

On May 10, 1910 a prominent visiting Japanese statesmen Prince Tokugawa Iesato (aka Prince Iyesato Tokugawa) was honored with a farewell banquet at the Nippon Club – A dozen of his countrymen gave him a dinner party at the Nippon Club, prior to him sailing on the following morning back to Japan.

His American friends were mighty kind to him, he said, and he added that the stay was pleasure only; no business significance at all.

Prince Tokagawa took a ride through Central park this morning, had lunch with Melville E. Stone and others at the Lawyer’s Club, and then went to the New York Hippodrome in the afternoon.

Notes: Melville Elijah Stone (August 22, 1848 – February 15, 1929) was an American newspaper publisher, the founder of the Chicago Daily News, and was the general manager of the reorganized Associated Press.

[5] In 1912, the club relocated to a purpose-built new building which had been designed for the organization by architect John Vredenburgh Van Pelt.

[6] In 1944, the Federal Office of the Alien Property Custodian sold the building to another; the Manhattan chapter of the Elks for $75,000.

[3] The facade is meant to be an abstract rendering of the Manhattan street grid (including the anomalies, such as Broadway).