Matt Towery:

Move Commerce Club But Preserve Its Heritage

By Matt Towery

(5/1/08) It is hard to imagine that I am more passionate about the Commerce Club than the polls and commentary I provided to longtime friend Sean Hannity on his show on the FOX News Network last night. But the Commerce Club has a very special place in my heart. Or that I love the club more than my beloved Falcons.

As a young boy, my father - whose club number was T-1 (I am T-3) - took me to the club when rules and regulations permitted. We are talking in the dark ages of the 1960s and early 1970s. In those days the club, according to Dad, operated not only what is now known as the “Lane Room” (main dining room), but floors of other restaurants. They had a steak house, a buffet room, a truly built-out pub, and private quarters whose purposes and value Dad never shared with me.

I am now into my third decade as a member in my own right. The people who work at this venerable institution are truly a family. But one by one they are reaching retirement or other more serious health issues. The club, by no fault of the great staff who fight hard to make it a great club, is no longer great.

My friend David Ratcliffe, quoted in the column of another dear friend, Maria Saporta, is floating the idea of merging the Commerce Club with the 191 Club, which may have fallen on hard times when big tenants abandoned the building. But it is owned now by Cousins organization, and that’s all I need to hear to let me know that the building will live on.

David’s speculation is right on the money. To rescue our beloved Commerce Club we must move it closer to the heartbeat of Atlanta business and that means easy access and a marquee location.

Dad still tells me of days in the 1960s when every section of the club was filled to capacity by noon.

“Matt,” he says in that drawn out Southern style that only a drawn out Southern man with more money than he knows what to do with and refuses to share with his only child can possess, “that was where we did the state’s business everyday. That and the Diplomat (a favorite lunch spot where my Dad and Ted Turner, who looked exactly alike, would hold court.)”

I have no doubt that the club will live on. So now I guess it is for the next generation to honor the lives of my dad, the late Mills Lane, the Allen family (yes my middle name is spelled “Allen” for a reason), my neighbor John Woodruff and his family, by resurrecting the spirit of a club they all loved.

By the way: while all of our families were members of “private clubs” whose members would not brook the concept of African American or Jewish members in those days, the Commerce Club stood alone as a venerable institution where race and religion were ignored.

In 1987 I called the late Hosea Williams to see if we could meet at the Commerce Club to discuss how my family might help him in a dire year for his “Feed the Hungry Campaign.” I loved Hosea and I didn’t care how he dressed or acted. Naturally the day we had lunch he violated every club rule as to dress code by wearing overalls to lunch. I never flinched, nor did my guest and friend Hal Gulliver. The wonderful staff never said a word.

The club management waived all dress code rules. And with the later generous help of my friend Mr. Boortz, and several others, we pulled the event off.

I applaud David’s early efforts to save this club. It has too many great men (and later women) who have given their all not to see this great institution thrive. And as they are retiring one by one, I am seeing those who cared for me as a child and were integral staff leave my beloved club. They are, more than anything else, the heart and soul of the once great (and to-be great again) Commerce club. I know it can be done, because as a boy Mr. Lane used to tell me, “It’s a wonderful world.” I still believe that.