Although most of them began in side streets, and many of them have in the later years migrated again to side streets, through the greater part of their history the clubs here discussed belong essentially to the “Avenue” from which they have drawn so much of their inspiration.  It does not matter that the present home of the Century is at 7 West Forty-third Street, or that the Lotos for the past few years has been at 110 West Fifty-seventh Street.  They remain, as they always have been, Fifth Avenue clubs.  Part of the history of the Lotos Club is written in the chapter dealing with “Some Great Days on the Avenue.”  For the fame of the organization as a giver of elaborate banquets to distinguished guests has spread through the land.  The Lotos dates back to the early spring of 1870, when a group of young New York journalists met in the office of the New York “Leader” to take the initiatory steps necessary for the formation of a club.  These men were De Witt Van Buren of the “Leader,” Andrew C. Wheeler of the “Daily World,” George W. Hows of the “Evening Express,” F.A.  Schwab of the “Daily Times,” W.L.  Alden of the “Citizen,” and J.H.  Elliot of the “Home Journal.”  As the founders were all connected with the literary, musical, art, or dramatic departments of their papers, it was not surprising that the projected association was to be modelled upon the Savage, Garrick, and Junior Garrick of London.  Earlier failure had shown that a strictly literary organization was out of the question.  A wider and more comprehensive membership was a necessity.  As set forth in Article I., Section 2 of the Lotos Constitution, the primary object of the club was “to promote social intercourse among journalists, literary men, artists, and members of the theatrical profession.”

From the first temporary quarters in the parlours of the Belvidere House, then at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Fourteenth Street, the club moved into a permanent home at No. 2 Irving Place, a building adjoining the Academy of Music.  In the autumn of 1870 the first president, De Witt Van Buren, died, and was succeeded by A. Oakley Hall, then the Mayor of New York, who assumed the office entirely in his social capacity, as a journalist, dramatist, and patron of the arts.  It was he who suggested the famous “Lotos Saturday Nights.”  There is a flavour of high Bohemia in the list of members of that period.  Among the artists were Beard, Reinhart, Burling, Lumley, Chapin, Bispham, and Pickett; there were such pianists as Wehli, Mills, Hopkins, Colby, and Bassford; singers like Randolfi, Laurence, Thomas, MacDonald, Perring, Seguin, Matthison, and Davis; and actors like Edwin Booth, Lawrence Barrett, Mark Smith, John Brougham, and George Clark.