How New York's Social Life Went Members-Only

A new wave of private restaurants, workspaces, wellness centers, and nightclubs has taken New York City by storm. Emily Sundberg gets inside most of them-and helps us understand why so many young New Yorkers are gleefully shelling out membership dues.

- EMILY SUNDBERG

BEFORE I BEGIN THIS story, I must disclose that much of it was written within the lacquered mahogany walls of Casa Cipriani New York, the 115-year-old ferry terminal turned members' club next to where the Staten Island Ferry comes into Manhattan. My spot was a corner couch in front of the crackling fireplace, not because the club was a subject of this story but because I'm a member there and I like to watch the buzzing traffic of private helicopters and boats in the harbor. I would tell you about the characters I see in the Jazz Café on Thursday nights (often in sunglasses at 10 p.m.), and what I hear in the sauna on Tuesday afternoons (this town's private schools are nuts)-I swear, sometimes it's a full-Scorsese fever dream-but I can't, because writing about the club's members, along with baseball hats and photography, is not permitted.

I am not alone in warming up to the members-only experience. Since the waning of the pandemic, private clubs have proliferated in New York City. It is not a new phenomenon in major urban areas around the world, but this is the crest of a whole new wave of options in a city that has not regarded club membership as a signifier for cool in quite some time. Good for a Christmas party or a cocktail with your dad's friend? Sure. But not cool.

Even as nouveau members-only clubs, like Soho House, thrived in places like London (where it was founded) and Berlin and Mexico City and Bangkok, the sparkle of New York's location came and went, due to the influx of bad start-up ideas and Allbirds sneakers. Now, though? Soho House's cachet is back up, with three locations in the city. And pay-for-play social life is having its day. There are start-up clubs, eating clubs, coworking clubs, office clubs that become dance clubs, old blue blood clubs looking for new life, et cetera, et cetera. What happened? First, obviously, the pandemic.