The Club

The mythologized clubhouse on Barrow Street. The (fictional) door is (always) open.

1932.

A clubhouse opens on Barrow Street in the West Village. Members are dockworkers and a few of the men who write for the magazines on Hudson Square. The dues are five dollars a year. The standing committee meets on Tuesday evenings; the running committee meets on Saturday mornings at six.

The Saturday loop.

The Saturday run goes north from the clubhouse, up the Hudson, around the Boat Basin, and back down. Five-point-two miles. The men who finish it are entitled to a particular pour of coffee at the diner at Greenwich and Bleecker. The men who do not finish it pay for the others’ coffees.

The uniform.

The uniform is a cotton tee, a wool cap, and a pair of canvas chinos. Always ivory or hemp. Always heavyweight. Always cut a half-inch longer in the back. The clubhouse provides the tee. The runner provides the rest.

1947.

The clubhouse expands. A reading room. A coffee bar. A telephone. The committee adds a Sunday loop — the Park Loop, six-point-one miles, clockwise, starting at Columbus Circle. The Sunday run is open to non-members so long as they finish.

The lapse.

Between 1971 and 2026 the clubhouse is, by the official record, closed. The records are unreliable. The Saturday runs continue, with various rosters, on various surfaces. The names of the routes do not change.

2026.

The clubhouse reopens — as a label. The Saturday run continues. The uniform continues. The names of the routes are now printed on the back of the tee, in oxblood letterpress, exactly as the original members would have wanted.

If the clubhouse and its rosters are imagined, that is a feature of the brand, not a bug. The uniform is real. The routes are real. The hour is real. The rest is what every honest label does to its own past — keep the parts that work, leave the rest in the file cabinet.

How to join.

Run a route. Wear the tee. Sign on to the members list. That is the whole initiation.