Private Clubs & Galas — New York Access, Explained

You don't get into the Metropolitan Club by writing to the club. You write to whoever is hosting the night.

You've seen the ballrooms in the reels. Some of the most private belong to New York's clubs: the Metropolitan Club, the Union League Club, the New York Yacht Club. Most women assume they're closed to anyone without a member's name. But many of the evenings held inside them are hosted by a heritage society or a charity, and the club is only the venue. And around them, other clubs publish more than you would think: their fees, their guest rules, even a free public programme.

Private Clubs & Galas — New York Access, Explained shows you how New York's private clubs, galas and patron circles actually work, and the five ways people really get in.

75 pages · 13 private clubs · 22 institution profiles · Digital format · Edition 3.1, verified October 2026

Includes a phone edition: larger type, cards instead of tables, every link tappable and a tap-to-go index.

Inside the private clubs

• Thirteen clubs, card by card. The Metropolitan Club, the Union League Club, the New York Yacht Club, the National Arts Club, the University Club, the Colony Club, the Explorers Club, the Harvard and Yale clubs, The Players, Soho House New York, Casa Cipriani and Zero Bond. For each: what the room is like, how to go as a guest, what is open without a membership, its reciprocal clubs, how to join and what it costs.

• What they cost, and when we saw it. Every fee carries its source and its date, from the clubs' own published dues to the press figures for the clubs that publish nothing.

• The letter from your own club. How reciprocity works if you belong to a club at home, including the six London clubs on the National Arts Club's reciprocal list.

• Who hosts what. The society nights held inside the clubs, each matched to its host and the website to write to.