At the Harvard Club

It was late in the evening when I met K...... on the way I had taken a slight detour by stopping briefly at Sephora's to smell Parisienne, a new rose-based floral fragrance developed by the perfumer, Sophia Grojsman. The notes include a “vinyl accord evoking gloss and varnish or the metal of a spike heel”, with additional notes of damask rose, violet, peony, patchouli, sandalwood and vetiver.  And thus, perfumed in an exotic array of fragrances I walked into the Harvard Club. Through the magnificent library, into smaller dining rooms or meeting rooms, under stairways and above hallways lined with stuffed oxen, large tusked elephant heads and soulfully gazing lifeless busts of deer.  Had I walked into a time machine? Disappeared from the concrete and glass jungle of New York city and stepped into the old world of the Raj?

"The name or title by which the society or Club into which we desire to form ourselves as afore said shall be known in law, shall be the HARVARD CLUB OF NEW YORK CITY. The particular business and object of such society or club shall be to promote social intercourse among ourselves and others, our associates and successors, who are to be persons who have been connected with Harvard University as students or instructors, or who have received honorary degrees therefrom, and for that purpose to establish and maintain in the City and County of New York, for the use of ourselves and such others above mentioned, a club house, having a library, a reading room, a gallery of art, and such other appurtenances and belongings as are usual in clubs and club houses."

The Harvard Club: From the Certificate of Incorporation, April 16, 1887