The iconic Friars Club — known for legendary roasts of celebrity members — was gearing up to reopen when the coronavirus hit.
Now it’s telling members it will stay dark.
The club had been closed for construction since Martin Luther King Day, when a burst pipe sent water cascading through the 112-year-old landmark at 57 E. 55th St., between Park and Madison Avenues.
The townhouse, known to its members as “The Jerry Lewis Monastery,” has been the home of the Friars since 1957 — with the city naming the street “Friars Way” in 2004.
The club was hoping to open this month after it became clear that only the most damaged public area, the Frank Sinatra Dining Room, still needed more work by the general contractor HRBDx, under direction from the New York Design Architects.
In remaining closed, it will be joining a legion of posh private clubs required to shut their doors by Gov. Cuomo due to the coronavirus outbreak, including the Harvard Club, the Harmonie Club, the Metropolitan Club, the University Club and Grand Havana Room.
The Friars’ comedic roasts have skewered show biz legends from Humphrey Bogart and Lucille Ball to now-President Donald Trump during the height of his hit NBC series “The Apprentice.”
Members have included Jimmy Fallon, Joan Rivers, Carol Burnett, Bill Murray, Billy Crystal and Robin Williams — as well as show biz legends like Cary Grant, Elizabeth Taylor, Humphrey Bogart, Redd Foxx and Kirk Douglas.
Declared a city landmark in 2016, its spiraling staircases are mesmerizing while hidden compartments, rooms, passageways and doorways are relics of the 1908 design by architect Alfredo S.G. Taylor. These hidden areas, which led to stairways, ensured servants could discreetly serve the mansion’s owner, financier and art collector Martin Erdman of Speyer & Co.
Later, the American Institute of Physics used it for its headquarters where Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer secretly parlayed during early phases of the Manhattan Project’s development of the atomic bomb.