The Explorers Club is a professional society that serves as a meeting place for explorers, scientists, and just about anyone with an interest in scientific exploration.
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World history is full of secret clubs with elite members, like Skull and Bones, the Freemasons, the Illuminati. Shrouded in mystery, these clubs become the stuff of legend. In a lavish upper Manhattan townhouse lies the headquarters of similarly legendary, though far less secretive society - The Explorers Club. Founded in 1904, The Explorers Club is a professional society that serves as a meeting place for explorers, scientists, and just about anyone with an interest in scientific exploration.
The Explorers Club funds, promotes, and assists in expeditions around the world, often bringing together business bigwigs like Amazon's Jeff Bezos with enterprising explorers. Among the club's current and historical members are astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, film director James Cameron, Space-X founder Elon Musk, President Teddy Roosevelt, and aviator Charles Lindbergh.
Located on the Upper East Side, the Explorers Club operates in a Jacobean townhouse that, in style and extravagance, recalls a miniaturised version of the mansions of old-time robber barons.
To become a member, you have to have been involved in field scientific research and have the recommendation of a current member. The average age of the club's 3,000 members is 65, according to Outside Magazine. Not all are scientists, mountaineers, and astronauts; many are simply wealthy travelers.
The Explorers Club headquarters was originally the home of Stephen C Clark, the heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune and founder of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Club member and famous writer Lowell Thomas later bought the house and gifted the property to the club.
This is the Empress Dowager chair, which belonged to Empress Wanrong, the wife of Puyi, the last emperor of China and the final ruler of the Qing Dynasty.
Here’s the tusk of a 250,000-year-old woolly mammoth that hangs above the club dining room
Between these chairs, sits the stuffed privates of a sperm whale that was given to the club in 1977
The Hall of Fame upstairs is filled with the club’s most notable members
Members who go on expeditions apply to carry an Explorer’s Club flag with them to their destination. This flag, a veteran of 19 expeditions, has been both to the highest point in the world (Everest) and the lowest (Challenger Deep).
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