Anthony W. Robins

TOUR: Art Deco Central Park West
2018-03-18 14:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York)
Reservations required. Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. Click here for information and registration, or call 212-935-3960. $30 ($20 for MAS members)
Based on Itinerary No. 8 in New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham’s Jazz Age Architecture.
A pleasant stroll along Central Park West for a closer look at the buildings that form Manhattan’s major residential skyline. We’ll see the great twin-towered skyscraper apartment buildings – the Century, the Majestic and the El Dorado – and other multi-colored jazz-age fantasies of high living overlooking the park.

TOUR: The Woolworth Building and its Lobby
2018-03-11 14:00 - 15:30, 2018-02-25 14:00 - 15:30, 2018-02-18 14:00 - 15:30, 2018-01-28 14:00 - 15:30, 2018-01-14 14:00 - 15:30, 2017-12-03 14:00 - 15:30, 2017-10-15 14:00 - 15:30, 2017-09-24 14:00 - 15:30 | Woolworth Building, 233 Broadway, New York
Reservations required – click here.
Tour of the Woolworth Building lobby, closed to the public for more than a decade and now open again. The tour includes a detailed look at the building’s unmatched polychromatic terra-cotta exterior, and an in-depth exploration of the lobby and its wealth of ornament, including hidden corners and staircases — plus a special visit to the mezzanine level for an up-close view of its extraordinary mosaic ceiling. For more, see the blog post.

Course: MASter Class - Researching the History of Buildings in New York City - Session No. 4
2018-02-27 18:30 - 20:00 | Municipal Art Society, 488 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10022
Reservations required – click here. $375 ($300 MAS or New York Landmarks Conservancy members or students)
Learn how to unearth detailed information about New York City buildings in four Tuesday evening lectures in February (6, 13, 20, 27) at 6:30 p.m., plus one weekday morning field trip. The four evening sessions include: The Building: an introduction to the records of the Department of Buildings. The Client: weaving your way through deeds, directories, obituaries, Who’s Who, and local histories. The Architect: using standard texts, guidebooks, periodicals, the Avery Index, and Committee for the Preservation of Architectural Records publications. Miscellaneous Sources: using photograph collections, maps, New York City archives, libraries and historical societies, and early 19th century tax assessment records. Field Trip: Manhattan Department of Buildings, New York City Conveyance Records, the Municipal Archives and the Municipal Reference Library.
This annual seminar has been running for 30 years. Participants have included architects, engineers, building owners, preservation advocates, lawyers and landmarks commissioners and even a New York City detective.
Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. Click here for more details, or call 1-212-935-3960.

Course: MASter Class - Researching the History of Buildings in New York City - Session No. 3
2018-02-20 18:30 - 20:00 | Municipal Art Society, 488 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10022

Course: MASter Class - Researching the History of Buildings in New York City - Session No. 2
2018-02-13 18:30 - 20:00 | Municipal Art Society, 488 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10022

Course: MASter Class - Researching the History of Buildings in New York City - Session No. 1
2018-02-06 18:30 - 20:00 | Municipal Art Society, 488 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10022

Tour: Manhattan's Art Deco Interiors
2018-01-07 14:00 - 16:00
Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. $30 ($20 MAS members). Reservations required. To register, call 212-935-3960 or register on-line.
The phrase “Art Deco New York” generally conjures romantic images of Manhattan skyscrapers. But just as remarkable as the towers are their sumptuous interiors – which are also far more comfortable to visit on a cold winter’s day. On this tour, we’ll visit the publicly accessible interiors of not quite half a dozen Deco marvels: the Daily News Building, the Chrysler Building, the Chanin Building, the General Electric Building and the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center.

SOLD OUT - Tour: Rockefeller Center
2017-12-25 10:00 - 12:00
Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. Reservations required. To register, call 212-935-3960, or click here to register on-line.
Rockefeller Center — New York’s urbane urban wonderland — is full of surprising history, remarkable art and stunning architecture. Conceived as a new home for the Metropolitan Opera, but built instead as Radio City, Rockefeller Center is a private real estate venture that has evolved into the public square of Midtown Manhattan.

TOUR: The Woolworth Building and its Lobby
2017-12-17 14:00 - 15:30, 2017-11-12 14:00 - 15:30, 2017-11-05 14:00 - 15:30, 2017-10-29 14:00 - 15:30 | Woolworth Building, 233 Broadway, New York
Reservations required – click here.
Tour of the Woolworth Building lobby, closed to the public for more than a decade and now open again. The tour includes a detailed look at the building’s unmatched polychromatic terra-cotta exterior, and an in-depth exploration of the lobby and its wealth of ornament, including hidden corneEvent Add-Onsrs and staircases — plus a special visit to the mezzanine level for an up-close view of its extraordinary mosaic ceiling. For more, see the blog post.

BOOK TALK: "New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham's Jazz Age Architecture"
2017-12-14 18:30 - 20:00 | Roosevelt Island public library, 524 Main Street, Roosevelt Avenue, New York City, NY, 10044, United States
Sponsored by the Roosevelt Island Historical Society – free and open to the public.
The Chrysler Building, the Waldorf-Astoria, Rockefeller Center– these are among the hundreds of Art Deco monuments that during the 1920s and ‘30s helped create the image of New York City as the world’s Modern Metropolis. In New York, Art Deco evolved through a series of Manhattan skyscrapers into the city’s chief architectural language. Following a massive reawakening of interest in them during the 1970s, New York’s Deco buildings today survive as prized remnants of a distant yet modern past that still help define the city’s visual identity.
The lecture covers the great skyscrapers of architects Raymond Hood, William Van Alen, Ely Jacques Kahn and Ralph Walker, including the Daily News, Empire State, Irving Trust, General Electric, American Radiator, Barclay-Vesey and RCA Buildings. It then traces the adaptation of this “skyscraper style” through apartment buildings on the Bronx’s Grand Concourse, airport terminals at LaGuardia, the Central Park West residential skyline, automated midtown parking garages, diners, hotels, department stores, banks, and theaters.

TOUR: SoHo Historic District
2017-12-03 11:30 - 13:30
Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. Reservations required ($30, but $20 for MAS members). Click here for information and registration.
SoHo today is home to the world’s greatest trove of cast-iron buildings. Cast-iron architecture began as a mid-19th-century cheap imitation of stone, in which the glories of the world’s past could be offered in modern times in mass-produced, ready-to-build versions. But cast-iron soon developed into a remarkable technology expressive of the industrial revolution, capable of entirely new architectural effects. Threatened by a proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway, SoHo was rescued from near obliteration in 1973 by designation as one of the city’s earliest historic districts. This tour considers the district’s original architecture as well as new Commission-approved additions.

SOLD OUT TOUR: Downtown Art Deco (Itinerary No. 1)
2017-11-12 11:00 - 13:00
Sponsored by the Art Deco Society of New York. Reservations required – click here for information and registration. $50 ($30 for ADSNY members – why not join?)
On this tour we will see more than a dozen stunning buildings that range from iconic skyscrapers to smaller but equally stylish Deco structures tucked between the towers of the Financial District.
Highlights will include unrivaled skyscraper designs such as Ralph Walker’s Gothic Modern fantasy of the Irving Trust tower, now known as 1 Wall Street and his equally stunning, Art Deco-encrusted Cities Service headquarters, now known as 70 Pine. As we walk we will also see prolific structures designed by Ely Jacques Kahn, better known for his buildings in the Garment Center; Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, architects of the Empire State Building; Louis Allen Abramson, designer of automats, hospitals, and synagogues; and a pair of buildings by Starrett & Van Vleck.

LECTURE: Behind the Bright Lights - the Great Broadway Theaters
2017-10-31 13:30 - 14:30 | Pelham Manor Club, 1023 Esplanade , Pelham, NY, 10803
Sponsored by the Manor Club in Pelham Manor, NY – click here for more information. Open to the general public; free for members, $5 for non-members (payable at the door).
With three-quarters of a century of history behind them, the 40 surviving Broadway theaters stand as stunning works of art in themselves, as well as monuments to the lively history of American theater. Many were built as lavish headquarters for Broadway’s great impresarios, who spared no expense in their decor. The Belasco Theater, designed for self-styled “Bishop of Broadway” David Belasco, boasts Tiffany glass, paneled wooden ceilings, and murals by the New York Ashcan School artist Everett Shinn. The Georgian facade of the Little Theater, built for aristocratic New England producer Winthrop Ames, suggests a Colonial New England manor house, into the intimate drawing room of which Ames cordially invited his audience. Other great Broadway houses include the recreation of the Petit Trianon in Versailles built for producer John Cort, the pseudo-Florentine palace built for the Theater Guild, and the delicately sculpted Music Box built by Irving Berlin for his Music Box Revues.

SOLD OUT TOUR: Art Deco 42nd Street
2017-10-22 14:00 - 16:00
Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. Reservations required ($30, but $20 for MAS members). Click here for information and registration.
A walk along Midtown Manhattan’s major boulevard of Art Deco skyscrapers. Star architect of the walk is crusty modernist Raymond Hood; we will visit three of his four skyscrapers: the Daily News, American Radiator, and McGraw-Hill. Star building, once the world’s tallest, is the one and only Chrysler, whose architect, William Van Alen, was once called the Ziegfeld of his profession. We will also visit the Chanin and Paramount Buildings, among others.

SOLD OUT BOOK TALK: "New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham's Jazz Age Architecture"
2017-10-18 18:30 - 20:00
The Chrysler Building, the Waldorf-Astoria, Rockefeller Center– these are among the hundreds of Art Deco monuments that during the 1920s and ‘30s helped create the image of New York City as the world’s Modern Metropolis. In New York, Art Deco evolved through a series of Manhattan skyscrapers into the city’s chief architectural language. Following a massive reawakening of interest in them during the 1970s, New York’s Deco buildings today survive as prized remnants of a distant yet modern past that still help define the city’s visual identity.
The lecture covers the great skyscrapers of architects Raymond Hood, William Van Alen, Ely Jacques Kahn and Ralph Walker, including the Daily News, Empire State, Irving Trust, General Electric, American Radiator, Barclay-Vesey and RCA Buildings. It then traces the adaptation of this “skyscraper style” through apartment buildings on the Bronx’s Grand Concourse, airport terminals at LaGuardia, the Central Park West residential skyline, automated midtown parking garages, diners, hotels, department stores, banks, and theaters.
After the talk there will be a book signing for New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham’s Jazz Age Architecture (SUNY Press, Excelsior Editions, 2017).

NYU - Five-session course - New York in the Jazz Age: Art Deco architecture from TriBeCa to the Upper West Side - Session No. 5
2017-10-17 14:00 - 16:40
Sponsored by New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Education. Tuesday afternoons, September 19 to October 17. For information and registration, click here.
This course traces the brash new style of art deco, which transformed New York into a modern metropolis. Follow the style’s impact on five Manhattan neighborhoods, mixing commercial with residential buildings. One walk covers the downtown neighborhoods of Tribeca and the Civic Center. Two more cover south Midtown: Murray Hill and Gramercy Park on the east and the Garment District on the west. A fourth looks at the upper edge of Midtown, from Bloomingdale’s on the east to 20th Century Fox on the west. And a fifth follows the transformation of residential architecture on the Upper West Side along Broadway and Riverside Drive. The course instructor is Anthony W. Robins, award-winning guide and author of the newly published book, New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham’s Jazz-Age Architecture(SUNY Press).

NYU - Five-session course - New York in the Jazz Age: Art Deco architecture from TriBeCa to the Upper West Side - Session No. 4
2017-10-10 14:00 - 16:40

NYU - Five-session course - New York in the Jazz Age: Art Deco architecture from TriBeCa to the Upper West Side - Session No. 3
2017-10-03 14:00 - 16:40

TOUR: Midtown Art Deco from Beekman Place to Rockefeller Center (Itinerary No. 6)
2017-09-28 17:30 - 19:30
Sponsored by Untapped Cities – reservations required. Reservation and registration, click here.
Starting on the far east side of Midtown at posh Beekman Place, we visit a handful of modernistic residences ranging from the fabulously wealthy River House to the more modestly middle-class Southgate apartments to the former Panhellenic Tower, a redoubt for young professional women taking on the big city in the 1920s. Pushing westward into the commercial heart of Midtown we visit the spectacular but lesser-known General Electric Building and continue with the Waldorf-Astoria, New York’s preeminent skyscraper hotel. We close with a brief look at Rockefeller Center, midtown Manhattan’s urbane urban wonderland.

NYU - Five-session course - New York in the Jazz Age: Art Deco architecture from TriBeCa to the Upper West Side - Session No. 2
2017-09-26 14:00 - 16:40
