fraternity clubs
 

What happened to this great idea? I am aware that DKE still maintains a club, and from what I understand it is thriving, and I know many Universities have their own clubs. Why did fraternity clubs die out? One would think that as membership in greek lettered organizations has expanded as much as it has that these establishments would be doing quite well.

Never heard of 'em.

They were very popular in New York City in the early part of the century. Most of the old line New England fraternities had them, as well as some of the more mainline organizations (Phi Gamma Delta).

What's the purpose of them? A place to meet where everybody knows your name?

im sure they were always glad when they came.

Yes, pretty much. Especially good in NYC where so many people commute.

I think everyone is too busy going home and "nesting" (bleah) to patronize these. Either that, or they just meet up on the golf course instead.

Clubs in the city are like country clubs with no golf course. In the early part of the 20th century, whichever club you were a member of pretty much determined your place in the social ladder, not unlike fraternities, which makes sense why the two eventually became linked.

http://images.nypl.org/?id=97740&t=w
New York Fraternity Clubs Building

Dunno, I looked at the DKE club website, and while I do appreciate the history behind, I assume that maintaining one of these clubs would require lots of $$$.

Perhaps they died out because members felt that $$$ would be better off spent somewhere else? Their chosen philanthropies, maybe?

ah yes. our chapter has our annual brunch here. the ballroom is gorgeous! i do remember seeing some DKE stuff in the lobby.

ETA: i think the DKE club just takes up residence at the Yale Club, i don't think they own the place.

I had heard they bought it and Yale moved their location?

A DKE would know better than I.

"Welcome to the Delta Kappa Epsilon Club, in residence at The Yale Club of New York City."
Dartmouth University is also in residence.
Very common to have "in residence" at the College Clubs.
The Cornell Club-New York has "in residence": Alumni of our Affiliated Universities (Brown, Colgate, Duke, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Stanford and Tulane Universities)

Times do not change all too much:
Campbell Raids Fraternity Clubs Building; Liquor Seized After Agents Pose as Members

• 
  May 1, 1930, Thursday

Page 1, 457 words
Posing for two weeks as college men and members of college fraternities, agents of the staff of Prohibition Administrator Maurice Campbell obtained evidence which resulted yesterday in a raid on the Fraternity Clubs Building, at 22 East Thirty-eighth Street, where they arrested five employes and seized 101 bottles of alleged liquors
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstra...8ED85F448385F9

I found this regarding the Fraternities Club at New York Architecture Images - The Pythian.

But the boom years of the 1920's accelerated the pace of such projects, including some that seemed financially doubtful. One of the first was the Fraternities Club, designed in 1922 and completed in 1924 at the southeast corner of 38th Street and Madison Avenue. An adjunct of the Allerton Hotel chain, the 38th Street building was put up for members of college Greek-letter organizations.

Designed by Murgatroyd & Ogden in a medieval Italian style, the 17-story building had meeting rooms for 16 college fraternities, like Delta Phi and Kappa Alpha, along with 560 guest rooms. In effect, it was really a very specialized hotel. The Cornell Club, a tenant, had an expansive set of rooms on the 12th and 13th floors, with a double-height lounge and murals of the Ithaca, N.Y., landscape.

The Clergy Club was also a tenant. Thus, in 1930 some of the most prominent ministers in the city were embarrassed — or perhaps only inconvenienced — to find that prohibition agents had masqueraded as college men for several weeks and then conducted a raid at the building. They confiscated 101 bottles of liquor, with a result that the entire building was threatened with closure, although it is not clear whether that happened.