America's Secret Aristocracy (2016)
“Practically all of them came of families antedating the arrival of the British fleet that turned Nieuw Amsterdam into New York. No mention was made of the affair in any paper in New York City, first, because the old regime did not and still does not believe that publicity is necessary to social success, and second, because the city at large has forgotten the families who built it.
Yet these families endure, submerged, and women whose ancestors have directed the social life of New York for ten o...r more generations still continue to entertain and be entertained without the blare of publicity.
These words, from Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer’s book, The Social Ladder, were penned in 1924. But they could just as easily, and accurately, have been written in 1987, and about private enclaves of New York gentlemen. Few New Yorkers today are probably aware of the existence, in their very midst, of a small, elite men’s club called The Zodiac. It is typical of America’s secret aristocracy that The Zodiac should have been created, in a very real sense, in secret, that it should have passed its hundredth anniversary several years ago without anyone but its members knowing, and that even the Social Register—which publishes the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and officers of all the elite clubs in the country—should be unaware of The Zodiac.MoreLess
Yet these families endure, submerged, and women whose ancestors have directed the social life of New York for ten o...r more generations still continue to entertain and be entertained without the blare of publicity.
These words, from Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer’s book, The Social Ladder, were penned in 1924. But they could just as easily, and accurately, have been written in 1987, and about private enclaves of New York gentlemen. Few New Yorkers today are probably aware of the existence, in their very midst, of a small, elite men’s club called The Zodiac. It is typical of America’s secret aristocracy that The Zodiac should have been created, in a very real sense, in secret, that it should have passed its hundredth anniversary several years ago without anyone but its members knowing, and that even the Social Register—which publishes the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and officers of all the elite clubs in the country—should be unaware of The Zodiac.MoreLess
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