Friars Club Unfairly Roasted

WITHOUT justification, it appears to be open season on the legendary Friars Club, a New York City institution that counts some of our brightest luminaries in entertainment, broadcasting and public service in its remarkable firmament.

The Post’s Cindy Adams most recently maligned the club in her Jan. 28 column, mixing innuendo from dubious sources with baseless invective and false and misleading statements. We prefer to stick to the facts. On Jan. 20, when the club was closed in honor of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, a water pipe ruptured.

The incident was unfortunate, but our iconic home, the Jerry Lewis Monastery, was built in 1908. A 112-yearold city landmark building, however beautiful and well-maintained, will sometimes show its age.

For comparison, a 2017 report found that New York City water mains — many of which also date from the early 20th century — rupture more than once every day, on average.

The Monastery will reopen as soon as safety allows. More important, the Friars Club will remain a center of the entertainment world — we are the Friars Club of Jimmy Fallon, Sarah Silverman, Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal, as we were the club of George Burns, Joan Rivers and Milton Berle, as Cindy’s column notes.

To New Yorkers of all walks of life, we are the club that recently hosted more than 800 high-needs children for first-run movie screenings; that created and underwrote the Lincoln Awards to support our nation’s distinguished veterans and their families; whose Sunshine Committee provides companionship for seniors and entertainment for children in need — and the club that has helped fund the education of hundreds of young, aspiring performing artists through our Adopt-a-Scholar program.

We love our home at 57 East 55th St., our fourth home in our 116-year history, and we understand our duty as its stewards to preserve and protect it for the coming generations.

In fact, before the Friars occupied the Monastery, it was home to the American Institute of Physics. Albert Einstein worked there. World-changing breakthroughs such as the Manhattan Project and the Big Bang Theory were developed by AIP members within its walls.

The rich history of our city is woven into this building and into the Friars Club, which has been very much at the center of its cultural identity for many decades, continuing now and into the future.

The vital pulse of the arts and entertainment industry helps define New York, one of the key reasons that 60 million tourists visit the Big Apple annually, to see Broadway shows and other live entertainment, and to visit the locations immortalized in their favorite movies and TV shows.

This vitality, and the philanthropic work we do in neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs, cannot be stopped by a burst pipe.

The Monastery will be restored better than ever and the work we do will brighten the lives of New Yorkers, just as it always has.

And, Cindy, please remember that premature obituaries died with the passing of our great friend and fellow Friar Abe Vigoda.

Larry King is the dean of the Friars Club.

Editor’s note: We asked Cindy Adams for a response, and she said the last time the Friars threw a good roast it was for the Marx Brothers.

The Friars Club will remain a center of the entertainment world.