Due to popular demand, our insider tour of Gramercy Park’s Players Club has returned! Untapped Cities invites you inside this members-only social club, founded in 1889 by Edwin Booth — one of the most renowned American actors of the 19th century, along with fifteen friends and colleagues including Mark Twain and General William T. Sherman. Today’s notable members include Jimmy Fallon, Ethan Hawke and Tommy Lee Jones, whose portraits hang in the club’s grand staircase.
Edwin Booth commissioned his friend, famed architect Stanford White, to redesign the façade and interiors of the Gothic-Revival mansion at 16 Gramercy Park South. This lovely building stands today, an historic and atmospheric private social club that has been home to several generations of actors, artists, writers and arts aficionados far and wide. Edwin Booth, brother of the infamous John Wilkes who assassinated Abraham Lincoln, lived in an apartment on the third floor that remains virtually unaltered since he died on June 7th, 1893.
TOUR HIGHLIGHTS:
Learn about the history of the Club and its members on our Players Club docent led tour
Visit the room in which actors met secretly in 1913 to form the Actors Equity Association, and walk inside Edwin Booth’s bedroom, where you can find the skull that was used in his famous 100 consecutive performances of Hamlet
Visit the Hampden-Booth Theatre Library, which contains a vital collection of books, plays, theatre magazines and other artifacts of 19th and early 20th century American and British theatre history
View the Players Club’s impressive art collections, including portraits by Everett Raymond Kinstler, Edwin’s theater costumes, and more
Get a close look at Mark Twain’s poker table
DETAILS: Price: $35 What to wear: Bring comfortable shoes What to know: The tour is 1.5 hours long. Some rooms of the Players Club may not be accessible if they are booked out for private events on the day of the tour.
Here are more photos of places you will see on this tour:
