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New York's Daily News gossiped yesterday about Sela Ward's desire to get into our local social elitist enclave, the Jonathan Club. They mention several people who couldn't gain access (being a part of the entertainment or media elite holds little sway and you should probably have a penis and fair skin) but don't talk at all about who is currently on the club's 3,200 person roster.
LA Downtown News recently did a feature on House mover George Kress who once lived in the club but that was back in 1930 and he's been dead for 33 years. We want to know who JC thinks are currently LA's finest. If they aren't the entertainment elite, who are they? What other captains of industry get to secretly guide our lives in the comforts of the high class downtown building or on its beachfront property?
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My company has its Christmas party there
I'm wondering what the big deal is
Like the secretive and powerful Bohemian Club in San Francisco, the Jonathan Club and the Valley Hunt Club in Pasadena have long served as the meeting ground for the Los Angeles WASP elite who made it a practice of excluding Jews, women, and ethnic minorities from their membership roles even though they were required to open up membership in order to enjoy access to public land at their Santa Monica Beach club. It came to a head in 2000 when the Club fought a CA Coastal Commission requirement to cease its membership discrimination practices in order get some zoning clearances (i believe?)
Robert Scheer's column may give some better details
http://www.robertscheer.com/2_localla/00_columns/041600.htm
I'd consider the current kerfuffle a big deal cause if they are still rejecting "hollywood types-" i.e. Jews in WASP code then what's their membership rolls like after they signed the Coastal Commission decree? Did they comply? We'll never know cause no one really knows who their members are. I can guess...
i don't know what the big deal is... so huffy puffy i thought i'd choke ~ but everyone wants to be exclusive so that we're "different"... (love the site btw)
The Jonathan Club actually is known as the easiest to get into, and most Jewish, of the 3 beach clubs. The other two are the Bel Air Bay Club, and The Beach Club.
They all have slightly different criteria, with the Beach Club and the Bel Air Bay Club being a little more family oriented. Bel Air is for the oldest money, the Jonathan for the newest money. Basically if you know members, and have buckets of cash, you can usually get in.
If you are very high profile and don't live a family life, even if you have tons of cash and come from an 'old' family, you may not be accepted. Basically to get into any of them, you have to impress the board with either money, connections, character, family, and probably all of those.
They still do home visits to make sure you aren't just driving an S500 but living in an apartment in West Hollywood.
What about the California Club? Doesn't that rank pretty high in exclusivity?
kekeke. Not to brag, but I've actually been in their downtown joint. In high school I went to a reception there for the winners of a Shakespeare essay-writing competition (I came in 2nd). Even in the middle of the enormous ballroom, the place has an ornate, stuffy, old-money kind of feel. Lots of marble and gold fixtures, but pretty damn far from anything you'd call hep.
Like many other clubs for half-dead white people, the Jonathan's been forced to liberalize its admissions policies, this is true. The Bohemian Club in SF now lets women and minorities in as well. Unfortunately, this doesn't make the society any less dangerous to the public's well-being (and I mean the Bohemian here). Although most secret societies are benign, they've historically been known with an influx of younger "haves" to become malignant instruments. The degree of power the Bohemian Club wields in today's society (both Bushes, Ashcroft and Henry Kissinger all being members, for example) is terrifying and frankly unparallelled since a similar masonic splinter group, the Thule Society, helped install Hitler in Germany. Compared to these people, the Jonathan Club are a bunch of little pissers trying to gain a foothold on the Zoo board.
Good points, Josh. And congrats on that prize-winning high school Shakespeare essay. I'm sure it was a harbinger of greatness...
we can easily localize this discussion. the power brokers in this town still belong to those quasi-secret clubs and are even more covert now that identity-politics come into play. I'm truly unsure of who to vote for in this coming mayoral election because it's so evident that both mayoral candidates are supported/controlled by the same back-room players who have no real interest in this town's welfare. I loath them both. Mebbe I'll select Bart Simpson as my write in vote. It's clear that he's a puppet of Rupert Murdoch.