1. 351 4th Avenue (Park Ave. South) at E. 25th Street
2. 316 4th Avenue (Park Ave. South) at E. 23rd Street
3. 24 W. 26th Street
4. 14 E. 23rd Street
5. Park Place at Cortlandt (downtown Manhattan)
6. East 42nd Street
7. 120 W. 49th Street
8. 30 E. 42nd Street
9. 22 E. 35th Street (former home, 1939–2023)
10. 58 W. 40th Street (current location, since 2024)

The Collectors Club provides, free of charge, the use of its facilities to specialized philatelic study societies. Eight societies currently meet at the clubhouse on a regular basis:

• American Revenue Association — First Thursday, 7:00–9:00 PM
• American Topical Association — Second Thursday, 6:30 PM
• British Empire Study Group — Second Thursday, 6:30–7:30 PM
• France and Colonies Philatelic Society — First Tuesday (intermittently), 6:00 PM
• Germany Philatelic Society — First Thursday, 7:00–9:00 PM
• Scandinavian Study Group — Second Wednesday, 7:00–9:00 PM
• U.S. Philatelic Classics Society – New York Chapter — Second Tuesday, 7:30–9:00 PM
• Vatican Philatelic Society — Second Thursday, 6:30 PM

All are welcome; at least one Club member must be in attendance. For more information, contact info@collectorsclub.org or (212) 683-0559.

Thomas Benedict Clarke was the original owner of the 22 East 35th Street property, who hired Stanford White to redesign the building — now a New York City landmark. Born in New York City on December 11, 1848, Clarke entered the linen business and, from as early as 1872, collected works by American artists. By the turn of the century he had amassed one of the largest private collections of American paintings, Chinese porcelain and other antiques, and became a patron of American contemporary art; in 1883 his collection was shown at one of the first exhibitions of the American Art Association.

In 1888, at the age of forty, Clarke retired from the linen business to devote himself to the arts, establishing himself as a full-time dealer in Chinese porcelain and Greek art. By October 1892 he had opened “Art House,” a gallery at 4 East 34th Street. He served as an art advisor and agent for J. P. Morgan, as president of the New York School of Applied Design for Women and treasurer of the National Society of Arts, and was a founding member of both the National Sculpture Society and the National Arts Club. Clarke was the first major collector in the United States to concentrate on American painting; in 1899 he sold 375 paintings — including 39 works by George Inness and 30 by Winslow Homer — in a landmark four-day auction that totaled almost $235,000.

In 1901, to house his growing collection, Clarke purchased one of the brownstone buildings at 22 East 35th Street, a block from J. P. Morgan’s residence in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan. To design his new residence he turned to McKim, Mead & White, the most prominent architectural firm in the country. In 1902 Stanford White — the partner in charge — transformed the brownstone into both a home and an art gallery, extending the rear, adding a fifth story, and giving it a new façade inspired by Richard Norman Shaw’s New Zealand Chambers in London. Upon completion, Clarke’s house was described in The Sun as “an art home…a home unique, as beautiful as it is individualistic. There is nothing like it in New York.”

At the time of his death on January 18, 1931, Clarke had assembled 175 American historical portraits painted by 77 artists, including 29 by Gilbert Stuart. In 1937 Collectors Club members Theodore Steinway and Alfred Lichtenstein purchased the Clarke property for $38,000 and donated it to the Club; the exterior was preserved while the interior was adapted, and on September 11, 1979, the building was officially designated a New York City Landmark Site. Clarke’s 1884 portrait by Charles Frederic Ulrich now hangs, reproduced on canvas, in the foyer of the house he built.

An article about Charles Lathrop Pack, written by K. David Steidley, Ph.D., Chair of the Archival and Historical Committee, appeared in the Club’s 125th Anniversary Celebration and was published in Volume 100, No. 4 (July–August 2021) of The Collectors Club Philatelist. Read the article (PDF).

In its 125th year, the Board of Governors took an important step toward securing the Club’s future: it listed the landmark headquarters at 22 East 35th Street for sale and began evaluating the Club’s long-term space needs. The Board recognized the integral, symbolic role the Stanford White townhouse played in the Club’s identity, but its accessibility, technology and maintenance challenges could no longer be ignored. The Board committed to a future home with easy 24/7 access, full accessibility for mobility-challenged visitors, a library on one floor, flexible meeting space, modern technology infrastructure and a stable, predictable cost structure.

The Club found that home at 58 West 40th Street, on the first-floor mezzanine of a century-old, 17-story building overlooking Bryant Park, occupying 7,480 square feet with floor-to-ceiling windows along the full width of 40th Street. The new floor was delivered as a blank canvas, allowing the design to follow the Club’s needs rather than the constraints of a pre-existing form: a lounge overlooking the park adjacent to a large meeting room with custom exhibit frames, a seminar room for smaller gatherings, and a research library with a large reading table, open stacks, researcher desks, a scanning station, high-density shelving and secure storage for the rare book collection.

The Board shared schematic floor plans and renderings with the membership as the design firmed up, emphasizing a forward-looking vision: “We are not looking to re-create the past…Our needs are driving the design, not a pre-existing fixed structure.” In 2024 the Club opened its new home — a modern, fully accessible Clubhouse on Bryant Park — beginning a new chapter while honoring more than a century of heritage. (Membership updates on the relocation were written by then-President Larry Haber.)

An extensive history appears in “The Collectors Club, 1896–1991” by John D. Dowd. In 1971, for the Club’s 75th anniversary, William W. Wylie prepared “An Informal History of the Collectors Club.”