The Pleiades Club emerged in 1896 from the gatherings of some members of the Greenwich Village artistic community in the small Italian restaurant of Maria del Prato on MacDougal Street.
Among the customers of Maria's, the Pleiades Club named: Amos Cummings, Colonel William Gulder, Ripley Oswood Anthony, Paul Du Chaillu, Clara Louise Kellogg, Mark Twain,[1] Valerian Gribayedoff, Signor Tagliapietra, "Billy" (W. E. S) Fales, Cleveland Moffett, Stephen Crane, "Billy" Welsh, Henry Tyrrell, Sam Chamberlain, Colonel Patton, William Garrison, George Luks, and Ernest Jarrold as its progenitors.
After the first few years of uncertain and varying policies, in 1901 a new Board of Governors was elected, the name Pleiades Club regularly adopted, and the incorporation papers granted on January 9, 1902.
The Pleiades had a boast: it "caters to bon vivant [sic] and ministers to the mind intellectual and artistic; it is a place where men and women mingle in social intercourse ... a place where poverty and riches, success and failure, rub shoulders without offense ..." The Sunday suppers were fun to go to, for the room was full of writers, artists, actors, musicians, lawyers, judges, politicians...The Club's activities primarily consisted of weekly dinners, accompanied by an entertainment program, such as music performances and poetry readings, where club members and guests of honor gathered "to enjoy and foster the allied arts of Music, Drama, Art and Literature, and to Promote the spirit of good fellowship" (The Pleiad, 1931–32).
Neiman had studied at New York Law School, set up offices as a patent and trademark attorney, and became a leading legal adviser for the cosmetic industry.