Posted on 11/14/2007 9:50:59 PM PST by neverdem
There were red faces at the Manhattan Institute, after the Union Club ejected reporters from an awards lunch in its Upper East Side clubhouse where they had been invited to hear Mayor Bloomberg and the former governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, speak yesterday.
After guests were served a lunch of roasted potatoes, stuffed chicken, and mixed vegetables, staff members of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, which was hosting the event and publicized it to members of the press, told reporters they needed to leave at the behest of club officials.
"The police are right outside. If you don't leave we're going to call them in," a woman who appeared to work at the club, but would not give her name, said as she blocked the door to the speech.
When reporters from five publications, including The New York Sun, later left the building, there were no police outside. Union Club employees said reporters are not allowed at events.
The Union Club was founded in 1836 and is considered the first men's social club in New York. The club's membership split over the Civil War, and abolitionist-minded members left to start the Union League Club in 1863, an associate professor of art history at New York University, Mosette Broderick, said.
By the 1870s the club had a 10-year wait list, prompting a flurry of new clubs to open, according to "Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898" by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace. The Union Club's reluctance to admit nouveau riche members led to the formation of the Metropolitan Club in 1894, the book says.
The no-press rule may be Union Club policy, according to a co-founder of the New York Social Diary, David Patrick Columbia, but, he said "They make exceptions when they want to."
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
So?
Jeb ate lunch with Bloomie? Put him in quarantine!
Giuliani-Kerik Angle in Suit by Ex-Publisher (ordered to lie to protect Giuliani--caught on tape?)
FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.
Thanks for the ping!
ugh
Denying reporters a free lunch? That’s just asking for bad press.
Keeping the press out of an awards banquet is a good thing. They’re only looking for a 5 to 10 second soundbite to make somebody look either stupid or heartless. They’ll write the story anyway as evidenced by this thread. Let them eat cake on the sidewalk out front.
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