Manufacturer: Rosenthal, Germany
User: Progress Club
Distributor: L. Barth & Company, Inc. New York City
Date of example: 1928

Progress Club, Central Park West & 88th St., circa 1905, photo by Irving Underhill From the Collections of the Museum of the City of New York

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Notes: The Progress Club was established in 1864 by a group of Jewish businessmen, primarily of German descent. According to the 1893 edition of King's Handbook of New York City, "members shall be privileged to use the German language at all meetings of the club."

In 1890, the club opened its new four-story club house on the corner of 5th Avenue and 63rd Street. At the beginning of the 20th century, the club decided to move to the then rapidly developing West Side to increase its membership.

In 1901, they sold this clubhouse and moved across Central Park and 25 blocks north to a site on the corner of Central Park West and 88th Street. In 1904, the new four-story club house opened. Things did not go as planned because many of the existing members found the new location to be too far from their homes, while the new neighborhood did not produce the number of expected new members.

In 1932, the club was dissolved and the former club house was sold at foreclosure to the Walden School.

The cresting for this pattern consists of an interlocking CP monogram with the C in yellow and the P in outlined gray. The flanking lattice border is gray with circle and shield shapes in yellow. The known example of this pattern is dated 1928, but it may have been a reorder of an earlier logo and border design. Because the club observed kosher rules, this pattern would have been produced in two different versions, possibly different colors.

Information on this long-gone club is extremely limited. So far no other material containing these monogram logos has been found. The only other known Progress Club on the East Coast was the Progress Club in Newark, N.J., which was organized in 1872. A 1913 menu for this club contains an entirely different interlocking CP monogram within a laurel wreath.

Sources:
New York Times article by Christopher Gray, published Aug. 2, 1987;
Information on Condopedia about St. Urban apartment building built adjoining the club in 1902; and
Daytonian in Manhattan story on The Lost Progress Club.

For more info:
Progress Club 2 by Hutschenreuther

ID contributed by L Paul
Photos contributed by ebay seller auntcindys
Progress Club building photo by Irving Underhill
From the Collections of the Museum of the City of New York