I have been asked to delete the post about the Maryland Club and the Groundhog Day Party, which I wrote earlier this week, and out of respect for the people who have asked me, I have complied with their wishes.
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April 2012, 2013, 2014 & October 2012, 2013
About Me
- Pigtown*Design
- Pigtown Design is the musings of Meg Fairfax Fielding, a Baltimore-based writer, photographer and fund-raiser, who explores design, architecture, culture, and current events in Baltimore and around the world.
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that is so ridiculous!!!
ReplyDeleteWow, are they really so testy about anyone else's knowing what goes on in their precious inner sanctum?? How sad. No wonder these clubs are such anachronisms.
ReplyDeleteWho said dinosaurs are extinct? But I did enjoy the peek at the interiors. Lovely.
ReplyDeleteWell, that is unfortunate. I don't recall anything offensive in the post, just photos of a handsome building. Sorry you were asked to delete it.
ReplyDeleteThanks to g-reader I was able to take and peak and it's a pretty gorgeous building.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear you had to take it down.
Oh puleeze. Give me a break.
ReplyDeleteMaintained with private funds, exclusively?
Well, I thought you gave them some very good press...lovely photos, glowing reviews. But apparently they prefer bad press, which they will now get heaps of from the bloggy world! Stuffy is as stuffy does!
ReplyDeleteKat :)
oh! now you know you have arrived as a force to be reckoned with in Pigtown. I am impressed, Meg. Keep digging. xx.
ReplyDeleteWell I'm glad I got to see the photos already! These old bastions really need to open up to the 21st (and even the 20th) century - whats the big deal that non-members (and women, gasp!) saw what the interiors are like. These private clubs are quickly falling to the wayside and have to move along with society in order to stay in business. Otherwise -that beautiful buildling will soon be a very glamorous starbucks and boutique hotel open to the PUBLIC. They may have an endowment but if there are no members.....
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the post, it was lovely. Glad I got to read it before it went away!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the post, but it is gracious and appropriate that you respected their wishes.
ReplyDeleteBoo. Well, I guess I can count myself among the lucky few who caught an illicit glimpse. Gosh, it's not like you were trying to expose anything going on there... just wanting to share the beauty. I still have that detail of a woman's face carved into a bookcase on my mind. Loved that especially. Of course you've done the right thing by taking it down, Meg, but it's too bad you had to and I hope you don't take on any more flak beyond their request.
ReplyDeleteMaybe there was some secret bookcase shown in your pictures that hide the entrance to Maxwell Smart's lair.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Anon 12:14. It was generous of you to share your pictures, and it was gracious of you to remove them. You're a winner either way, Meg--not that we didn't already know that.
ReplyDeleteA discreet glimpse into a social scene to which I know I'll never belong, for one reason or another--lack of Old Family background, lack of Old Money, lack of any money, you name it--is always interesting, and I'm not bothered by exclusion from that private world. And though I've never been a member of a club like this, I'm always sorry to see when one of them finally withers & dies, leaving behind only a beautiful empty shell, to be glitzed up within an inch of its life & turned into a trendy restaurant or boutique hotel whose prices will, ironically, keep it every bit as inaccessible to the average person as it was before. I don't call that progress.
Then again, that shorts-clad guy traipsing down Marie Antoinette's lovely marble stairs doesn't seem right, either, but, hey, once they storm the palace, this is what happens. Call me an elitist, but there's no reason that everything has to be open to everybody.
I've been mostly gray since my late 2Os and a few years ago, I was invited to lunch at just such a historic, handsome club by an elderly Chicago architect who, in his long career, had designed some of the most recognizable Modern icons of American architecture. We were joined by one of his associates, an even older architect who had been in ill health for a while. Despite their age & frailties, they were excellent lunch companions, telling interesting, funny & ocassionally unrepeatable stories about a generation of Chicago architects now long gone. It was a memorable meal, one of the most entertaining I had had in several years. Afterwards, the three of us decided to head over to the Art Institute. As we crossed Michigan Avenue, still talking & laughing, and walking at a speed suited to the oldest of our group, a well-dressed dude in his thirties brought his shiny BMW right up into the crosswalk, flashing his brights, laying on the horn & and screaming "Speed it up, Grampas! Get outta the way!", thus forcibly reminding my companions that they were not the valued elders of our culture, but merely annoying old geezers in the way of a guy going places. I coulda slugged the guy. And as with old architects, so with old clubs. They don't move as fast as some people think they should, so they seldom get the respect they deserve.
If, in our texting, tweeting, no-jackets-required world, historically significant private clubs like this are doomed to eventual extinction anyway, why not let them fade away in peace & with a little dignity, instead of hooting & hissing at their dwindling membership, urging them to get with the times? When they're gone, they'll be gone forever.
magnaverde- thoughtful and gracious comment as always! I have to say you've made me change my thinking with your persuasive words.
ReplyDeletei was going to chime in with the "so ridiculous" crowd, until i read magnaverde's essay. let the old ways have their last gasp, and thank you for respecting their wishes- you could have easily refused, but really, what victory is that?
ReplyDeleteYes, of course, Meg's removal of the offending posts was gracious, and yes, Magnaverde has written a charming, thoughtful, and provocative comment. But count me still with the "so ridiculous" crowd.
ReplyDeleteOne can still appreciate beauty, tradition, grace, architecture, design, historical significance, and all the rest of the finer things in life without going along with the nonsense and exclusivity of old boys' clubs, in both the figurative and literal senses.
I know this is beyond the scope of Meg's original post, but the Maryland Club is, after all, as much a political statement as an aesthetic one. Such clubs were created with the express purpose of keeping out "undesirables" -- in the case of the MDC, for example, blacks and Jews, who were barred until very recently, meaning only a few years ago. The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore magazine, Style magazine, City Paper -- all have done exposés on these places (the BCC included).
I get what Magnaverde is saying about the MDC possibly being turned someday into a fancy restaurant that will still keep out the hoi-polloi because it'll be too expensive, but I maintain that that's an entirely different case. Yes, we can't all afford to go everywhere; that's a given. But it's a whole different matter to be excluded because you can't afford THIS particular eatery though you can afford THAT one, and being excluded because you're black, or Irish, or Episcopalian, or Italian, or Jewish, or you name it. And the latter is what clubs such as the MC represent. I think that, even in our appreciation of their physical beauty, grandeur, whatever, we can't lose sight of that particular brand of exclusivity.
I, too, think the 30-something honking his horn and shouting at the old gentlemen was a first-class a**hole. But I don't think his obnoxiousness is an analogue to the kind of skewering some of us are engaging in here.
ARGH!!!!!
ReplyDeleteSad. And crazy on their, part, those stodgy old exclusionist men.
ReplyDeleteBut, good for you for been considerate. The world will march on, with or without the Maryland Club. And eventually, someone, it won't be a closed society anymore. (I mean, realllllly).
Pathetic indeed but you are one classy gal!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I didn't get to see the post. BUT, I'm sorry that people still exist who get their social jollies by feeling that they're excluding others. And it was on a blog for Pete's sake, not the New York Times. Sheesh.
ReplyDeleteNot clubs I care to join.
It makes me laugh that some people are so enamored with secret societies and clubs in this day and age. Anonymous philanthropy is one thing (I totally understand that), but this kind of stuff is another.
ReplyDeleteDidn't think the post was at all offensive or disrespectful, photos of elevator buttons? But if you were a guest, and the host asked you not to, then you did the right thing. When in Rome...
ReplyDeleteThat does make me sad Meg, because you are such a proponent of your fine City and it's very special spots. I certainly don't think very much of this establishment though!
ReplyDeleteYou ROCK!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I read you everyday and got a chance to peek into the rarefied world of the MC. They should be proud of their fine care taking of a historic property, too bad they can't share your respectful photos.
ReplyDelete