The Philadelphia Club

Brandon has been very lucky to work with Dr. Brady, who is renown as the Father of Radiation Oncology.  He wrote the book everyone uses to study for boards.  He has been a great mentor for Brandon, both in his residency and with Radiating Hope.  Dr. Brady did a graduation dinner for Brandon and Larry at The Philadelphia Club, which is the oldest gentleman's club in the US.   It is a true gentleman's club...it felt like going back in time, dining with silver candlesticks in a historic building.  There are only 400 members and it's quite exclusive...more on that below.  Dr. Brady is an important figure in Philly and has done a great deal to help the city.  He's an art collector and has donated several statues to the city.

The residents with Dr. Brady

I couldn't take a good picture, but there were very cool, old phone booths....like in the movie Charades

Brandon was lucky to work with great residents!

The residents' wives

More info on the Philadelphia Club--women weren't allowed at dinners till 1953.

Some facts on the club from Wikipedia:

Among the club's guests have been eleven U.S. Presidents: Martin Van Buren, James K. Polk, James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, William McKinley, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Gerald R. Ford, George H. W. Bush; soldiers and sailors: George B. McClellan, William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, William Tecumseh Sherman, George Dewey, George Goethals; writers, artists, actors and musicians: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Makepeace Thackeray, Bram Stoker, Henry Irving,Charles Kemble, Edwin Booth, Booth Tarkington, John Barrymore, Joseph Pennell, Leopold Stokowski, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Eugene Ormandy, Louis Kahn; and other public men: Talleyrand, Stephen A. Douglas, Lord Randolph Churchill, Grand Duke Alexander, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Winston Churchill, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Lord Louis Mountbatten.^[8]

In its first 119 years, women were admitted to the club on three occasions: balls in January 1851 and January 1869, and the centennial reception in October 1934. In May 1953 the membership voted to allow women guests at dinners. Many restrictions have since been eased, but women remain excluded from membership.^[9]

An April 2008 assessment from Philadelphia Magazine:

The Philadelphia Club, 1301 Walnut Street; 215-735-5924. The oldest and most guarded of the city’s old-guard clubs sits, with increasing incongruity, at the edge of the Gayborhood — but the Philadelphia Club makes no adjustments to passing fads. Unmarked outside but for a discreet awning logo, it is said to be one of the oldest men’s clubs in the U.S., feeding the city’s elite since 1834. Inside the three-story building, the Philadelphia Club is — except on occasional nights when members gather around the piano to sing — kept deathly quiet by members eating Old Philadelphia lunches of chicken salad and fried oysters. The blue bloods hang out to play an archaic domino game called sniff. This is the hardest club in town to join, limited largely to old Philadelphia families. Walter Annenberg applied for membership once and was blackballed — though he was eventually accepted. Was he turned down because he was Jewish? Because he made enemies? Who knows. Founded: 1834. Number of members: 400. Notable facilities: Rooms for napping. Wait list: Unknown. Demographics: Pretty damn white, although it reportedly got into the token-Jew business in the 19th century. Notable members: Socialite Robert Montgomery Scott. Food: Members mention the ham and veal pie. Crustiness: As crusty as that ham-and-veal pie.^[1]