New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham's Jazz Age ArchitectureSUNY Press, 2017 M04 24 - 304 pages The first guidebook devoted exclusively to New York City s Art Deco treasures. Of all the world s great cities, perhaps none is so defined by its Art Deco architecture as New York. Lively and informative, New York Art Deco leads readers step-by-step past the monuments of the 1920s and 30s that recast New York as the world s modern metropolis. Anthony W. Robins, New York s best-known Art Deco guide, includes an introductory essay describing the Art Deco phenomenon, followed by eleven walking tour itineraries in Manhattan each accompanied by a map designed by legendary New York cartographer John Tauranac and a survey of Deco sites across the four other boroughs. Also included is a photo gallery of sixteen color plates by nationally acclaimed Art Deco photographer Randy Juster. In New York Art Deco, Robins has distilled thirty years worth of experience into a guidebook for all to enjoy at their own pace. A wonderful, warmhearted, exceptionally knowledgeable and detailed guidebook that takes you firmly by the hand along fifteen thoughtfully planned itineraries through New York s most exuberant and optimistic architectural heritage those much-beloved Art Deco skyscrapers, apartment houses, shops, and theaters that stand out as the showy orchids and magnificent birds-of-paradise of the city s building stock. Anthony W. Robins s New York Art Deco is an essential introduction to hundreds of structures that are, as the book says, waiting impatiently for you to visit. Tony Hiss, author of In Motion: The Experience of Travel Anthony W. Robins has produced what will surely stand as the definitive guide to New York City s Art Deco architecture. The book is an authoritative as well as entertaining tour de force, drawn from the author s encyclopedic knowledge of the subject. Jules Stewart, author of Gotham Rising: New York in the 30s Anthony Robins s New York Art Deco fills a void in the design library of New York. Well organized by itineraries that begin at the very tip of Manhattan and work their way into the other four boroughs, it is filled with invaluable information on the monuments of Art Deco and French moderne structures whose design perfectly expresses the streamlined era when speed and movement were celebrated. This is a must-have book for every lover of Art Deco, whether you are a New Yorker or a visitor from New Zealand. David Garrard Lowe, author of Art Deco New York The Art Deco style fits New York like a glove, from the skyscraping Chrysler Building to the little, eye-popping Lane Theater on Staten Island, and nobody knows it like Anthony Robins. If you thought you knew Art Deco as I did, before I read his New York Art Deco then buy this book and be surprised. Christopher Gray, author of the former New York Times Streetscapes column Buy this book, take a few wonderful walks around the entire city (discovering some fine New York neighborhoods you probably have never been to), from the Grand Concourse and Washington Heights treasure trove of Deco to the Chrysler Building to Flatbush in Brooklyn, and ask yourself, do all those new glass towers in Manhattan leave you as delighted as Art Deco s confections, whether seven stories or seventy? That generation knew how to make buildings that you really want to live in, work in, and walk by. Thank you, Anthony Robins, for giving us the keys to that kingdom. Barry Lewis, architectural historian With the publication of New York Art Deco everyone, from the city explorer to the armchair reader, can now experience Anthony Robins s dynamic Art Deco walking tours. Robins not only discusses the city s famed Deco skyscrapers, but also identifies the spectacular but little-known Deco gems spread across the city. This book is a must for those who love New York and thrill to Art Deco architecture. Andrew Scott Dolkart, author of The Row House Reborn: Architecture and Neighborhoods in New York City, 1908 1929 |
Contents
Art Deco New York | 1 |
A Note on the Itineraries | 9 |
Itinerary No 1 From Bowling Green to Wall Street | 11 |
Itinerary No 2 Civic Center and TriBeCa | 29 |
Itinerary No 3 From Murray Hill to Gramercy Park | 45 |
Itinerary No 4 The Garment District | 61 |
Itinerary No 5 FortySecond Street East to West | 75 |
Itinerary No 6 From Beekman Place to Rockefeller Center to the Brill Building | 97 |
Itinerary No 10 Upper East Side | 169 |
Itinerary No 11 Washington Heights | 181 |
Itinerary No 12 The Bronx | 195 |
Itinerary No 13 Brooklyn | 213 |
Itinerary No 14 Queens | 225 |
Itinerary No 15 Staten Island | 239 |
A Note on Sources | 245 |
References | 247 |
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Common terms and phrases
42nd Street 86th Street apartment buildings apartment houses architects architecture Art Deco Art Deco apartment bands Bank Beaux-Arts block Blum Broadway Bronx Brooklyn building’s built Cabrini Boulevard cast-stone Central Park West Chanin Chrysler Building Church city’s classical color corner of West Cross curving Daily News Building district east side Eighth Avenue Ely Jacques kahn Emery Roth Empire State Building Fifth Avenue Fort Washington Avenue geometric patterns Ginsbern Grand Concourse grilles Hood’s Hotel includes ItInerArY John Street kahn’s Lexington Avenue lobby look Madison Avenue main entrance Manhattan metal Midtown modern modernistic murals northeast corner office building ornament panels Park Avenue plaza Raymond Hood rises Schwartz & Gross setbacks Seventh Avenue skyline skyscraper spandrels stone stories Street façade style tall terra-cotta Theater tower turn left turn right vertical walk east walk north walk south Wall Street Washington Avenue West 86th Street west side world’s York’s Yorker zigzag