The Cloud Club was a lunch club that occupied the 66th, 67th, and 68th floors of the

Chrysler Building The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco skyscraper on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City, at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. At , it is the tallest brick building in the world with a steel fra ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. At one time it was the highest lunch club in the world. It opened in 1930 and closed in 1979.

History

Texaco Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American Petroleum, oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its Gasoline, fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an Indepe ...

, a prospective tenant, had asked the management of the

to create a restaurant for executives. The Cloud Club opened in July 1930. At the time of its opening it had 300 members. As a result of the club opening, Texaco leased fourteen floors. The club was open during daylight hours and was closed in the evening. Many famous executives based in the tower had lunch in the club. The club was only for men for several decades. In the 1950s and 1960s newer clubs opened, causing the attendance at the Cloud Club to decrease. In 1971 180 corporations supplied 300 members of the club. The club declined more as competition from other clubs increased and as companies moved offices to suburban areas. Texaco moved its employees to

Westchester, New York Westchester County is located in the U.S. state of New York. It is the seventh most populous county in the State of New York and the most populous north of New York City. According to the 2020 United States Census, the county had a population o ...

in 1977, and the club closed in 1979.

Tishman Speyer Tishman Speyer Properties is an American company that invests in real estate. History The firm was founded in 1978 by Robert Tishman and Jerry Speyer. In March 1988, the company announced its first project in Europe, the construction of a 70-s ...

, which took over the Chrysler Building in 1998 and refurbished it, leased the top two floors of the Cloud Club space to tenants.

Design

William Van Alen William Van Alen (August 10, 1883 – May 24, 1954) was an American architect, best known as the architect in charge of designing New York City's Chrysler Building (1928–30). Life William Van Alen was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1883 to ...

and

Walter Chrysler Walter Percy Chrysler (April 2, 1875 – August 18, 1940) was an American industrial pioneer in the automotive industry, American automotive industry executive and the founder and namesake of American Chrysler Corporation. Early life Chrysler wa ...

had differing ideas of what the Cloud Club should be. The former had preferences for the modernist style while Chrysler had a preference for faux medieval and baronial styles. Charles McGrath of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' wrote that the final design "reflected a somewhat uneasy compromise" between the men. Christopher Gray of ''The New York Times'' stated that the "Cloud Club was a curious mix of historic and modern."

Composition

Charles McGrath of ''

'' stated that the space overall "seems almost preposterously small by today's standards" and because of all of the facilities inside it, its "backstage" areas "must have felt like a submarine - or, rather, like a very cramped airship." The 66th floor was the point of entry into the club. Cloud motifs were used in the entry area. The pilasters and friezes were in a neo-Classical style. The bathrooms and elevator surrounds used an

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style. The flooring was made of pegged planks. This floor had a bar and grill room, done in an "olde English" style, which used leaded glass doors, wood beams, chandeliers of wrought-iron, and floors in pegged planks. It also had a Tudor-style lounge decorated in oak paneling in a mortise-and-tenon style. The main dining room, on the 67th floor, was located on the club's south side and had a capacity of 30 people. The north wall had a mural of Manhattan. The room was decorated with etched glass sconces and granite columns. The room had a view of New York City. The vaulted ceiling, in a Cathedral style, had a cloud mural. McGrath described it as having "a futuristic,

Fritz Lang Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary ''Variety'', August 4, 1976, p. 6 ...

sort of look". A Renaissance-style staircase in marble and bronze connected the dining room with the 66th floor. The private dining room for

was located on the 67th floor. It used black etched paneling, and included an etched frieze of automobile workers. This room had a view of

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...

. There was another private dining room that was for

. It included a mural of an oil refinery, the Texaco logo, and a truck. It "was reputed to be the grandest men's room in all of New York" according to McGrath. The facility also had a stock ticker room. The service areas included a barber shop, a humidor, kitchens, and a locker room. During the

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...

alcohol was stored in cabinets in the locker room.

Food

The fruit served included "No. 18" pink grapefruits, larger than supermarket grapefruits, and melons that were produced in a farm in

Upstate New York Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York State that lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long Is ...

owned by a club member. The most well-known dishes were bread-and-butter pudding,

black bean soup Black is a color which results from the absence or complete Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption of visible spectrum, visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or fi ...

, and Dover sole.

In fiction

*The Cloud Club is featured in Matthew Barney's ''

Cremaster 3 ''The Cremaster Cycle'' is a series of five feature-length films, together with related sculptures, photographs, drawings, and artist's books, created by American visual artist and filmmaker Matthew Barney. ''The Cremaster Cycle'' was made over a ...

''. *The Cloud Club is mentioned in the ''

Seinfeld ''Seinfeld'' ( ) is an American television sitcom created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. It aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, over nine seasons and List of Seinfeld episodes, 180 episodes. It stars Seinfeld as Jerry Seinfeld ( ...

'' episode "

The Voice The Voice may refer to: Fictional entities * The Voice or Presence, a fictional representation of God in DC Comics * The Voice (''Dune''), a fictional ability in the ''Dune'' universe * The Voice, a character in the American TV series ''Cleo ...

". *It is mentioned in the song "

The Story Of The Eggs ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

" by the

band

Wheatus Wheatus are an American rock band from Northport, New York, formed in 1995. They are known principally for their 2000 single "Teenage Dirtbag", which appeared in the films '' Loser'' and ''Bully'', as well as the HBO miniseries ''Generation Kil ...

. It is from their second seasonal EP Pop, Songs & Death Vol.2: The Jupiter EP.

Members

* Walter P. Chrysler *

Edward Francis Hutton Edward Francis Hutton (September 7, 1875 – July 11, 1962) was an American financier and co-founder of E. F. Hutton & Co., once one of the largest financial firms in the United States. Early life Hutton was born in Manhattan, New York City, the ...

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Juan Trippe Juan Terry Trippe (June 27, 1899 – April 3, 1981) was an American commercial aviation pioneer, entrepreneur and the founder of Pan American World Airways, one of the iconic airlines of the 20th century. He was involved in the introduction of t ...

Gene Tunney James Joseph Tunney (May 25, 1897 – November 7, 1978) was an American professional boxer who competed from 1915 to 1928. He held the world heavyweight title from 1926 to 1928, and the American light heavyweight title twice between 1922 and 1923 ...

Jack Frye William John "Jack" Frye (March 18, 1904 - February 3, 1959) was an aviation pioneer in the airline industry. Frye founded Standard Air Lines which eventually took him into a merger with Trans World Airlines (TWA) where he became president. Frye ...

References

{{reflist

External links

The Cloud Club Gallery
at Decopix - The Art Deco Architecture Site
Pictures by Randy Juster at the Cloud Club's end
1979 disestablishments in New York (state) Clubs and societies in the United States Defunct restaurants in New York City Restaurants established in 1930 Texaco 1930 establishments in New York City Restaurants disestablished in 1979