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Vogue

Which New York Private Club Are You?

Haven't you heard? New York is in the middle of a private-club boom. I could wax poetic about why: the pandemic, which made this city a more insular one; iPhones, which robbed 'going out' of its discretion; the reach of social media, which turned getting a reservation at even an average restaurant into the Hunger Games. And I could muse that if New York nightlife is becoming a place where cash matters more than cool, we might be losing a piece of the city's soul in the process. But I'm not going to do that. Because guess what—I joined two of them! I wrote my little application essays, name-dropped other members, sent in a picture of myself, and then handed over my Visa, which was then charged very promptly and expensively. Why? The clubhouses, for starters. Many of them are beautiful spaces, housed in buildings by renowned architects and with interiors by famous designers. They offer world-class amenities—multiple restaurants! Omakase bars! Spas! Co-working spaces! Cinemas! Rooftops!–and have strict privacy policies. Casa Cipriani, for example, reportedly expelled three members after taking a photo of Taylor Swift. (She's been spotted both there and at Chez Margaux.) Which leads me to the final selling point of the private clubs: exclusivity. More important than all those fancy rooms? The people in them. So with that in mind, I decided to do something that's a lot more fun than plumbing the changing societal tides: poke fun of myself—and the rest of my next-gen closed-door cohorts—with a story about the types of characters* you'll find at New York's private membership clubs. After all, we can laugh at ourselves, right? Right? *Everyone described below is completely made up. No one sue me. All my money is tied up in membership fees. Chez Margaux Twelve people sent you a link to New York Magazine's 'It Must Be Nice to Be A West Village Girl.' You responded 'HAHA'—a 'HA' short of normal. Secretly, you're insulted. You don't own an Aritiza puffer. You own a Prada one. And you'd never wait three hours in line for I Sodi. Obviously, you have their V.I.P. number. While waiting for your friend Emma at Chez Margaux, you pull up Street Easy and search 'Tribeca.' You find a two-bedroom apartment listed for four million dollars. Then you text it to your father: 'Isn't this cute???' Zero Bond You're an 'entrepreneur' who got this membership to 'network'—even though no one knows what you do. (You're a real estate developer, thanks for asking.)