The Notre Dame Club Of New York

To advance the interests of the alumni, family and friends of the University of Notre Dame in the New York Metropolitan region and their University through a commitment to excellence in a lifelong relationship.

That Notre Dame and New York City have been intimately tied together over the years is not in doubt, but few people realize the true depth of the relationship or how early it started.

Notre Dame’s first contact with New York City actually happened before the establishment of the University. Fr. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., the founder of Notre Dame, and six Holy Cross Brothers, arrived in New York harbor on The Iowa in the late afternoon of September 13, 1842, thirty-nine days after leaving Le Havre, France. Fr. Sorin said his first mass in the United States at St. Peter’s Church, the oldest Catholic Parish in New York City, located at 16 Barclay St., in downtown Manhattan, not far from Ground Zero. Located inside the vestibule of the church is a commemorative plaque marking the event. Fr. Sorin and his six companions spent three days in New York City before beginning the twenty-four day journey to Vincennes, Indiana.

After the establishment of the University, in the early days, New York City could boast of but a handful of Notre Dame graduates. In those times the gatherings were few and far between. Some distinguished alumnus was looked to for leadership, and the meetings consisted of an informal luncheon or dinner, usually held when some officer of the University visited the city.

In 1915, a number of graduates made a definite effort to establish the club as a permanent organization. The Monsignor Luke J. Evers (ND 1878) was acting president, and with the assistance of a number of younger men a drive was made to enroll every Notre Dame man in the New York area. An informal dinner was held at a little hotel in the Times Square area, and about forty men attended. It was at this gathering that a plan emerged to hold an event that would put Notre Dame on the map in New York and a great banquet was held at the Waldorf-Astoria. The Very Rev. John W. Cavanaugh, C.S.C., President of the University, was the guest of honor and speaker of the evening. More than 500 were seated at the tables, and among those present were church dignitaries, city and state officials, distinguished educators, prominent citizens and alumni. The next morning, Notre Dame was on the front page of every New York newspaper.

Following on this success, on February 14, 1916, the Notre Dame Club of New York was incorporated in Albany “to promote social intercourse among its members, to further the interests of and in general to uphold the influence of the University of Notre Dame and for that purpose to establish in the City of New York a club house, or club, and maintain rooms, etc.

The founders, in the order in which they signed, were:

Angus D. McDonald, 1900
Msgr. Luke J. Evers, A.B. 1879
Rev. John Talbot Smith, L.L.D., 1907
Dr. Francis Quinlin, Laetare Medalist 1906
William E. Cotter, 1913, President of the National Alumni Association, 1937.
Daniel M. Brady, Subway Alumnus
Ambrose A. O’Connell, 1907, Past President of the National Alumni Association.
Rev. Michael Shea, 1904, co-author of the “Victory March.”
Joseph F. Fleury, Subway Alumnus
Patrick W. O’Grady, Subway Alumnus
Edward Kenny, attended Minims and High School at Notre Dame
Rev. John A. MacNamara, 1897
Joseph M. Byrne, 1879
Joseph M. Byrne, 1915, Director of the National Alumni Association.
Francis C. Schwab, 1902
Peter P. McElligot, 1902
Joseph B. Naughton, 1897
Francis B. Cornell, 1900

Later on the club established permanent headquarters at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. It was not long however, before it was discovered that the organization’s members were not able to maintain the pace that they had cut out for themselves, and the Club became inactive.

The advent of Notre Dame in Eastern football, however, brought Notre Dame men together for the annual contest at West Point. The first Notre Dame game at West Point was in 1913 and the games were played there every year (with no game in 1918). Special trains up from the city were arranged by Joe Byrne (1915). Joe’s office became the defacto headquarters of Notre Dame in New York and he actually became responsible for distributing the football tickets, no small feat at the time. In 1923, the game was moved to Ebbet’s Field in Brooklyn, and in 1924, moved again to the Polo Grounds in Manhattan, and the responsibility of selling 65,000 tickets to a skeptical public was placed upon Joe’s shoulders once more.

That game, on October 19, 1924, was the inspiration for the famous Grantland Rice “Four Horsemen” quote:"Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out on the green plain below". In 1925, the game moved to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, which paid Notre Dame $60,000 to play there.

In the meantime, the Notre Dame Club of New York was reorganized and after a series of preliminary meetings in 1923, John T. Balfe (1920) was chosen president. The Club started holding regular meetings in the new Fraternity Clubs Building, 22 East 38th Street, at the corner of Madison Avenue. Notre Dame shared this building with all the other major university clubs, including Harvard, Yale and Colombia.

One of the major activities every year was disposing of the game tickets and entertaining “Rock” and the team, though the Club also held numerous social events throughout the year, including the first Universal Notre Dame Night on May 8, 1924. John T. Balfe was president for five years, 1923-1927. Under his administration the Notre Dame Club of New York became one of the foremost alumni organizations in the eastern United States, and one of the largest and most successful Notre Dame Clubs. At the time, the Notre Dame Club covered all five boroughs of the city, Westchester, Putnam, Orange and Rockland counties, Long Island and Southern Connecticut.

Notre Dame continued to play Army at Yankee Stadium every year through 1946 (the famous 0-0 tie), providing Notre Dame with an annual presence in the city. The game was also considered one of the social highlights of the year, with attendance from stars in the political, church, sports, and entertainment worlds. Notre Dame football received excellent coverage in the New York papers. In the 1940s, the Lexington Avenue line of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, the IRT—today the No. 4 train, became the main method for working class people to attend the game at Yankee Stadium and it was at this time when the term “subway alumni” became widely used. The last Notre Dame game at Yankee Stadium was in 1949, when Notre Dame beat North Carolina en route to a National Championship.

Notre Dame’s strong presence in the city continued through the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1950s, the majority of Club meetings were held at the Waldorf Astoria. Notre Dame vs. Army returned to New York in 1965 and was played in Shea Stadium, Queens, making Notre Dame one of the few Universities that can say it has played football in four of the five boroughs of New York City. The last Notre Dame vs. Army game in New York City was in 1969. As the late 60s approached, hard times were coming to New York City and the Club was not immune to these effects. An underground Long Island Club began, as suburbanites no longer wanted to come into the city, and similar moves were made in Westchester County. In 1975, as the city came close to bankruptcy, the Long Island and Westchester Clubs were made official.

In the late 1970s, the New York Club, under the leadership of a dedicated group of 1960s graduates, began its long climb back and this continued throughout the 1980s, but the Club continued to suffer from a lack of older alumni, who tended to move out of the city. Club events were held at the Downtown Athletic Club, home of the Heisman Trophy. During this time, Westchester folded back into the New York Club. In 1991, Staten Island became its own official club, and since then has been continuously recognized as one of the finest small Notre Dame Clubs in the country. However, New York City’s fortunes were once again declining, and the Club was affected as well. In the mid 1990s, the Club foundered once again, with an entire year of no president in 1995.

Under the leadership of Mayor Rudy Guiliani, the quality of life in New York City improved significantly, and a dedicated group of alumni began the arduous task of rebuilding the Notre Dame Club of New York, helped tremendously by the fact that New York was fast becoming a desirable place to live again. September 11, 2001 affected the Club in its own way, with all of the Club’s financial records lost in the Towers’ collapse, where then-Treasurer Rian Girard (1994) had his offices. Club meetings also had to be moved out of the GE building in Rockefeller Center due to the anthrax scare. In the ensuing five years, the Club, like New York City, has been reborn and has regained its place as one of the most active Notre Dame Clubs in the country and the central club of the New York metro area.

The Notre Dame Club of New York, Inc. is incorporated as a 501(c)(3) Not-For Profit Corporation in the State of New York.

A copy of our Certificate of Incorporation is available upon request. The Notre Dame Club of New York, Inc. is exempt from payment of the New York State and local sales and use tax.

The Association of Notre Dame Clubs, Inc. has received an IRS Letter of Determination, granting it Tax Exempt status as an organization described in Section 501 (c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and in particular Section 509 (a)(3) and Section 170(b)(1)(a)(viii). The Notre Dame Club of New York, Inc. is a subordinate member club in The Association of Notre Dame Clubs, Inc. and is covered under the group exemption letter. Contributions to The Notre Dame Club of New York, Inc. are Tax Deductible by donors.

A copy of our Internal Revenue Service Letter of Determination is available upon request.

The Notre Dame Club of New York, Inc. maintains a scholarship fund whose purpose is to help fund students from the New York Metropolitan area who are in need of financial assistance to make their dream of a Notre Dame education a reality. The club currently awards a total of eight $1,500.00 annual scholarships. Students retain the scholarship funding for their four years at the University.