New Location for July 25 and August 21 Parties
Conflicts Between the Evite Invitation and This Page
Membership in the Harvard Club
Crimson Pub
Read James' essays.
We now have sections for Business, Computers, and Dating & Romance.
See photos from previous parties.
This page is written generically for all of my parties given at the Harvard Club. If there are any conflicts between the information contained in the Evite invitation I sent to you and this page, the information in the Evite invitation supercedes the information contained in this page.
For both the large and smaller cocktail parties, we ask that people RSVP, even if they are not attending. You can tell that a response is expected because the invitation begins with "RSVP --". If you don't know whether you can attend, please RSVP "Maybe." If you don't respond, you will continue to receive reminders until you do. See our RSVP policy. We print nametags for those who RSVP "Yes," but we do not print nametags for those who RSVP "Maybe." Therefore, if you've RSVPed "Maybe" and you want a nametag printed for you, you should change your response to "Yes" by noon of the day of the party.
The Harvard Club of Boston
One Federal Street, 38th floor
Boston, MA 02110
(617) 542-2070
www.HarvardClub.com
Please note that the downtown club is different from the Main clubhouse, which is located in Back Bay on Commonwealth Avenue.
One Federal Street is at the corner of Federal and Milk Streets in the financial district.
If you're taking the MBTA, your first choice would be the State Street subway stop, which is
available on the Orange and Red lines. Second choice would be the Downtown Crossing subway stop,
which is available on the Orange, Red and Blue lines.
Directions to the downtown Clubhouse
Veritas Room
Parking is available at One Federal Street. If you're coming for an evening function, the parking cost is only $6. When you leave and pay the parking attendant, make certain that you inform him that you were at the Harvard Club party, so that they only charge you $6.
The downtown Clubhosue is on the 38th floor, which is the top floor of the building. The Clubhouse has a panoramic 360 degree view of Boston.
Do not press 38 on the keypad for the elevators; rather, press the "Harvard Club" button at the bottom of the keypad. It will then display on the keypad which elevator will take you to the Clubhouse. Make certain you enter that elevator (look up near the door of the elevator for the right elevator); otherwise, you will take a ride to, say, the 36th floor and then ride down. If you have any questions, ask the security guards or my greeter. It's frankly a goofy system and I don't know why the building spent tens of thousands of dollars to replace a system that worked fine.
My large parties at the downtown Clubhouse without dancing start at 6:30 and run until approximately 11 p.m. My large parties with dancing start at 6 p.m., 30 minutes earlier to provide more time for people to talk before the dancing begins.
For the large cocktail parties, we ask that people dress up. Cocktail party dress is strongly preferred. Business attire is acceptable if you're coming directly from work. Anything less formal — including business casual — is not acceptable. At a minimum, men should wear jackets and shirts with collars, and we prefer that women wear dresses or skirts. Please see our dress code. If in doubt, err on the side of overdressing slightly. We do drop from the invitation list those who are substantially underdressed. If you have any questions about the dress code, please give me a call at (781) 647-0136, which is good day and night.
At the party, guests wear a nametag on their chest, and a descriptive tag if they have one. Please note that this is not optional. Nametags and descriptive tags should be worn on your chest, rather than your purse, your pants or your shoes.
We print nametags and descriptive tags for those who RSVPed "Yes"; we do not print them for those who RSVPed "Maybe." Therefore, if you RSVPed "Maybe" and you want a nametag and descriptive tag printed for you, you should change your response to "Yes" no later than noon the day of the party.
Nametags and descriptive tags are color coded:
If your tag is always falling off and you want to purchase a plastic holder, the greeters will sell you one for $2. There are two types available: a clip on and one attached to a string that you wear around your neck. The plastic holder is yours to keep for future parties.
There is an attended coat check immediately next to the bar.
The men's restrooms are next to the entrance to the bar, which is on the side of the building that has a view of Back Bay and Cambridge. The women's restrooms are on the exact opposite side of the floor, on the side of the building that has a view of the Boston Harbor and Logan airport.
You can order food at the downtown Harvard Club.
Miller Room
Cash and credit cards are accepted.
Approximately 250 people attend my large cocktail parties at the downtown Harvard Club.
We encourage you to bring several guests to the party, preferably the most interesting people you know. One girl brought nine friends to one of the parties. The most appropriate guests are those who would be eligible to join as members. Please inform your guests of the dress code. The kind of people we're looking for is explained here, and our expectations of our members are described here. If you have doubts about whether you should bring a particular person, we've learned the hard way that it's best to err on the side of caution and to not bring them, as our experience has been that when members have doubts about a particular guest, such doubts are well-founded. Our invitation list is already quite large and is growing at an increasing rate, so it's more important to focus on keeping the quality of the invitation list high than adding even more people. If you have any questions about what we look for in guests, please give James a call at (781) 647-0136, which is good day and night.
If you know ahead of time that you're going to invite someone, we strongly encourage you to e-mail James their name and e-mail address. That way, we can add them to the general invitation list and we'll print a nametag for them. If you don't know, you're free to just bring them to the party.
Please bring numerous business cards with you in case you meet people you want to follow up with. After every party, I receive several e-mails from people, saying that someone they met at the party wrote down their contact information and they can't read their handwriting. Wouldn't it be easier if the other person just handed them a business card? If you don't have business cards, Professional Taste Printing will print 1000 business cards for as low as $35.
At the party, there will be at least a dozen facilitators, who will introduce you to other people if you request. You can use them to meet new friends, to find business contacts, or for dating. Facilitators wear nametags and descriptive tags with a red border. At the party, there will be several posters with photos of some of the facilitators.
When you exit the elevators on the 38th floor, there will be a few tables in the elevator waiting area. On these tables, there will be two white notebooks. These contain a list of everyone who RSVPed "Yes" or "Maybe," their descriptive tag, and their description. If you want to know about someone attending the party tonight (assuming they are on the invitation list — look for a white nametag or descriptive tag with no border, or tags with a red border), feel free to look through these notebooks.
During the party, you can reach me on my mobile phone (781 718-1301). Except when you know for certain that I am out (i.e., I'm hosting a party), the best number to reach me is (781) 647-0136, which is good day and night. When I'm out, I transfer the 647-0136 number to my mobile phone.
Main Dining Room
If you have not already done so, please create an Evite account. This will allow you to view all of your Evite invitations — whether sent by me or someone else — in one place. If you delete an Evite invitation sent to you, you can log into Evite and it will be there. It costs nothing to create an Evite account.
Some anti-spam programs incorrectly identify the invitations I send to me as spam (a false positive). In your e-mail package, please add jmitchell@kensingtonllc.com and info@evite.com to your white or approved list. Your company's technical support department should be able to show you how to do this.
If you're busy and wish to not receive invitations for a certain period of time, you can suspend your membership for X months or X years. Simply write to James and tell him what X is.
If you wish to no longer receive invitations for any parties going forward (as opposed to suspending your membership), simply write to James. Before you do, please read this page and this page.
The Harvard Club is looking to increase membership. At Pub night, the Club will be offering tours and will be offering a financial incentive to those who join that evening. The downtown clubhouse offers memberships to any graduate of any university.
Lobby
The Harvard Club has two facilities. The main clubhouse on Commonwealth Avenue in Back Bay is a very large, elegant, stately Back Bay building, with 100+ rooms, including bedrooms for guests out of town, athletic facilities, and several dining areas.
There is a second facility that is located on the top floor of One Federal Street in the financial district. The downtown clubhouse has literally the best view of Boston in the city. Depending on where you are facing, you can see all of Back Bay, the Charles River and then Cambridge, or alternatively the Boston Harbor and beyond. The downtown clubhouse is open daytime and evenings but is not open weekends.
The Harvard Club is looking to increase membership. There are two categories of membership. The first is full membership, which is open to:
All of these people can join as full members. Unlike past eras, there is no committee that interviews and vets you, you can simply sign up as long as you meet the Club's requirement for Harvard affiliation. General membership permits you access to the Main clubhouse and the downtown clubhouse.
The second class of membership is for the downtown clubhouse at One Federal Street in the financial district. This membership is open to ANY alum of ANY university. Those who work in the financial district would find such membership particularly appealing, given its central location.
During the party, the Harvard Club will be providing tours of the downtown clubhouse. If you join that evening, for either membership, one-third of your initiation fee will be credited towards your general account at the Club, which you can use to purchase food, beverages and other charges. The dues structure depends on when you graduated ahd how far you live from Boston; this information will be provided at the party.
If you join that evening, the Club will issue you a membership card and number on the spot, and you can charge your food and drinks that evening to your account. How's that for instant gratification?
The Harvard Club has an extensive Web site, which should answer most of your questions. If you cannot attend the party or if you want to join now, please call Tom Martorelli at (617) 450-8431 with any questions. Tom's e-mail is tmartorelli@harvardclub.com. If you wish, you can join on-line.