This year the Friends of the Montauk Club, a charitable organization with a mission to maintain the historic exterior of our club house, will honor Everett Ortner. Everett, a long time board member, was President of the Montauk Club from 1991 – 1993 and is an Honorary Member of the Club. Everett and his late wife Evelyn are credited with being primary movers in the creation of the Park Slope Historic District. Please save the date and plan to attend!

ABOUT EVERETT ORTNER:

An editor, writer and photographer who was a leader in the movement to preserve Brooklyn’s 19th-century brownstone communities, Everett Ortner has made a$200,000 planned gift to the School of Architecture. His gift will support education related to historic preservation. “I am deeply indebted to the University of
Arkansas,” he said when reached on the phone, adding that he
hoped the gift would encourage people “to respect and preserve
the history in their communities.”

Born in Lowell, Mass., and raised in New York City, Ortner
came to the University of Arkansas almost on a whim. “A friend
told me that it was a very good school, and very inexpensive,” he
recalled, adding that out-of-state tuition ran $25 a semester when
he enrolled in the height of the Depression. Sustained by cheese
sandwiches, cherry pies and the works of William Shakespeare,
Ortner regularly braved the 42-hour bus ride between New
York and Fayetteville, ultimately earning a bachelor of arts degree
in literature in 1939.

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Late night party guests screen Casino Royale as the evening comes to a close.

Thursday June 3, join us for the next edition of our First Thursday cocktail series. This June we celebrate the birthday of Ian Lancaster Fleming (28 May 1908 – 12 August 1964) with a James Bond themed martini party. We’ll be sipping Gin (shaken not stirred) in the upstairs bar while screening some of the greatest Bond films on the big screen. Come and meet your fellow members, mix and mingle and enjoy cocktails from Antonio at the bar. We’ll also be launching our new bar and cocktail menu – featuring some surprises sure to delight. Invite your non-member friends, don your favorite tux and see you there!

Join us Thursday nights at the Montauk Club:
First Thursday: Cocktail party
Second Thursday: Beer Club
Third Thursday: Wine Club
Fourth Thursday: Members choice on the hi-fi at the bar

The Montauk Club is pleased to announce an evening celebrating literature as part of our new reading series, No Book Jackets Required.  Featuring authors Nelson George and Jessica Hagedorn and curated by James Hannaham, the event is produced in partnership with Ringshout and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.   The reading will take place at 8 PM, Wednesday, June 23, 2010, in the historic 120 year-old Ballroom at the Montauk Club.  Authors will read from recent work, followed by a panel discussion with a cocktail hour and tour of the club’s landmark building afterward.

The ticket price is free to club members and $5 for non-members; drink tickets for cocktails, wine, beer and non-alcoholic drinks can be purchased.  Seating is limited: please RSVP by June 20, 2010 to manager@montaukclub.com.

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I hope to see a good crowd on May 20 at 7-ish; it’s going to be fun. And don’t forget, it’s also $10 Thursday, so plan to stay for dinner.

At our April 15 wine tasting, we achieved a perfect score! At this tasting, we were exploring oakiness, by comparing a 2008 Clos du Bois North Coast Chardonnay with a 2008 Pouilly-Fuissé Petite Chapelle, and tannins, comparing a 2007 Benziger Cabernet Sauvignon with a 2007 Ramsay North Coast Pinot Noir. Every one of us picked the oaky white and the tannic red. This only goes to prove Andrea Immer Robinson’s adage that practice makes perfect – this is the fourth time we have done the oaky and tannic tasting at the wine class. Find out how our tasting went after the jump.

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Join us once again for our monthly cocktail series on the second floor. This month we feature Drew Nugent singing hot jazz hailing from the 1920’s at the piano.

Drew will be playing from 8-10 pm.

Check out Drew on Myspace
Drew Nugent is a jazz musician hailing from the Philadelphia Suburbs. He plays the piano, cornet, goofus, fiddle and he sings as well. Nugent specializes in playing what one would call Hot jazz or Hot music from the 1920’s and early 30’s. He began playing this music when he was a teenager, after seeing the Ken Burns Jazz Series. He fell under the spell of greats like Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Bix Beiderbecke, Red Nichols, Joe Venuti, Earl Hines and Red McKenzie to name only a few. Nugent leads a band called “Drew Nugent & the Midnight Society”. He and his dedicated team of A1 musicians can be seen playing every week and everywhere from Washington D.C. right on up to Rhode Island at the moment. Nugent’s goal is to take this music across the globe and bring it back to popularity.

Join us Thursday nights at the Montauk Club:
First Thursday: Cocktail party
Second Thursday: Beer Club
Third Thursday: Wine Club
Fourth Thursday: Members choice on the hi-fi at the bar

SEE ALL EVENTS

by Andrew Yamato

“In this room I can remember the older gentleman playing cribbage.”

Dino Veronese looks wistfully out the window of the club’s newly refurbished Card Room. Having joined in 1960, Dino is now one of those older gentleman himself–in fact, he’s the Montauk’s most senior active member. Having served two long stints as club president (1971-74 and 1980-91), he’s affectionately regarded as the club’s “Godfather”, but Dino would be the last person to point it out that it’s his formal oil portrait which hangs impassively in the club’s lobby. I was a member for months before I realized this myself, as my first and lasting impression of Dino was anything but intimidating: he simply got up and walked over to introduce himself to my wife Jenny and me, welcoming us to our first brunch at the club.

“We used to take our children here,” he recalls now. “Even when they were very young. As they start growing up, you’d take them to Sunday brunch, because you didn’t want to keep them up too late. My kids learned how to eat here, how to dine out.” Dino is still a regular at Sunday brunch, and still helping younger generations with their table manners: he recently gave our newborn daughter Vivi a baby bib.

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Did you know we have wireless internet access at the clubhouse? Bring your laptop or smartphone (heck you can even lug over your desktop if you wish) and enjoy broadband access. The password? Just ask Antonio
at the bar.

also: did you know we’re on twitter? FOLLOW US!