STREETSCAPES: The Old Yale Club; Make Way for the Blue and Gold

THE club district in the West 40's has seen a gradual decline from its high point around 1910 as the Elks, Lambs and other social clubs have given up their buildings. But now it looks like the old Yale Club at 30 West 44th Street - the first high-rise club building and a school since 1971 - will return to club use. The likely new owner is another Ivy League institution, the University of Pennsylvania's New York Club.

The notion of clubs associated with particular colleges began with the Harvard Club, which was organized in 1865. At first, the clubs were in older rowhouses, but in 1893 the Harvard Club built its own house, at 27 West 44th Street. Yale did not establish a club until 1897, when alumni acquired an old brownstone, freshly vacated by the Lambs, at 17 East 26th Street. By 1898, the new Yale Club had 1,000 members and a surplus of $20,000.

Perhaps with the spirit of noblesse oblige the Harvard Club gave a party in 1899 at which ''members of both clubs were choked with food, drink and songs and gave each other countless long cheers'' according to the club's membership book in 1981. ''Invigorated by that experience, the Yale guests immediately decided they must have a bigger, better clubhouse to return the compliment.''

Two years later Yale followed Harvard to an emerging club district -the West 40's near Grand Central Terminal - with its building on West 44th Street. In 1887, the Berkeley Athletic Club had opened at 23 West 44th Street. The Century Club occupied 7 West 43d Street in 1899, the same year the New York Academy of Medicine moved to 19 West 43d Street. The Yale Club members were so uncertain of their new venture they stipulated that their building ''be so constructed that if it failed it could be turned into bachelor apartments,'' the club history says. Evarts Tracy and Egerton Swartwout, Yale architectural graduates who had just left McKim, Mead & White to set up their own concern, designing the 11-story building and their plans called for six floors of bachelor apartments.

The first floor had a rear grill room given by the class of 1867 and decorated with tankards and oak paneling. The second floor held a double-height library and lounge with giant columns and chestnut pilasters. Floors three through eight held 60 bachelor apartments and the ninth floor was taken up by minor dining rooms. The 10th floor was the main dining room, another double-height space, that had seating for 400. The kitchen was on the top floor. The interior is now a warren of dropped ceilings and office partitions, but it appears that parts of the first and second floors are largely intact.

Tracy & Swartwout rendered the exterior in a mixture of Beaux-Arts and neo-classical styling - with a giant arch at the 10th floor on a fairly ordinary tripartite composition in limestone and brick. Above the arch was the inscription ''Qui transtulit sustinet,'' the state motto of Connecticut. The office of Gov. William A. O'Neill of Connecticut provided the English translation as, ''He who transplanted still sustains.''

The unusual thing about the Yale Club building was its obvious height. The University Club, completed in 1899 at 1 West 54th Street, had camouflaged 11 floors behind a facade that appeared to be only three, but Yale's was the first uncompromisingly high-rise clubhouse, towering over the neighboring stables and club buildings.

The New York Tribune quoted a member in 1901 saying, ''It will be an easy matter to look down upon the Harvard and throw bouquets to them when there is occasion for doing so.''

THE Yale Club soon outgrew its first house. It built its present 21-story clubhouse at 50 Vanderbilt Avenue in 1915. Between then and 1933, 30 West 44th Street housed the national fraternity of Delta Kappa Epsilon and then the Army and Navy Club.

The Federal Government bought the building in 1943. In 1971, the Government valued the property at $1.15 million, declared it surplus and transferred it to the new, private Touro College.

Dr. Bernard Lander, president of Touro, says the college is ''very close'' to selling the property to the University of Pennsylvania Club of New York, which currently shares quarters at 15 West 43d Street with the Princeton Club.

The Department of Education approved the sale late last month but stipulated that Touro College pay the Government $450,000 out of the $15 million sale price and use most of the balance to acquire and improve a new site. The closing will take place as soon as Touro can find another location, but David P. Helpern, architect for the University of Pennsylvania Club, says he expects alteration work to start in the fall.