The abandoned remains of the Hudson River Yacht Club’s once-elegant clubhouse

The clubhouse, once a sportsman’s retreat with a skylit staircase and a rotunda that hosted annual dinners and dances, sits like an empty shell. The second-floor balcony, from which members and guests watched the Regattas and aquatic shows, looks like a ghost of the Gilded Age—overshadowed by the stately apartment towers that rose in the 1920s along Riverside Drive. All of New York’s buildings have an end date. For the clubhouse of the Hudson River Yacht Club, that commenced in July 1934, just days after a mysterious fire all but destroyed this decaying, vacated structure. These photos of the clubhouse are dated April 1934, two months before the blaze. The remains are sorrowful, but the Hudson River Yacht Club’s beginning in 1874 was auspicious. Yachting these days is a sport that’s been edged to the sidelines. But in the Gilded Age, it was one of the most popular activities, and exclusive yacht clubs popped up all along the Hudson River Manhattan—especially in the newly developed…