Anthony W. Robins

TOUR: The Woolworth Building and its Lobby
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, 2017-09-17 14:00 - 15:30, 2017-08-06 14:00 - 15:30, 2017-07-23 14:00 - 15:30 (America/New_York) | 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.

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

TOUR: Art Deco tour - TriBeCa and Civic Center
2017-09-24 11:00 - 13:00
Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. Reservations required ($30, but $20 for MAS members). Click here for information and registration.
This tour begins at the edge of the financial district and continues into the Civic Center with the Federal Post Office, a WPA product of the Modern Classic; and three remarkable municipal buildings at the northern tip of the Foley Square courts district: the New York State Building, the Health, Hospitals and Sanitation Building and the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse. Star architect of the walk is Ralph Walker, designer of three communications-related behemoths: the delightfully decorative New York Telephone Company headquarters, the ponderously massive Western Union Building, and the Long Lines Building which is both massive and decorative.

NYU - Five-session course - New York in the Jazz Age: Art Deco architecture from TriBeCa to the Upper West Side - Session No. 1
2017-09-19 14:00 - 16:40

SOLD OUT - TOUR: Art Deco in Washington Heights (Itinerary No. 11)
2017-08-20 10:30 - 12:30
Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. Reservations required – click here.
High up on a hill, its streets lined with modest but attractive six-story Art Deco apartment houses, Washington Heights has more in common with West Bronx neighborhoods just across the Harlem River than with the rest of Manhattan. Many of the same architects who worked on the Grand Concourse also designed apartment buildings on or near Fort Washington Avenue – we will see work by Horace Ginsbern, Jacob Felson, Israel Crausman, Miller and Goldhammer, Charles Kreymborg, and H. Herbert Lillien. Two taller apartment buildings, by Boak and Paris, offer a more idiosyncratic take on the modernism of the 1930s. This walk with Anthony W. Robins will also include a one-story taxpayer, and one of the city’s few frankly Deco subway entrances. But the star attraction is the Fourth Church of Christ, Scientist (now the Hebrew Tabernacle of Washington Heights), one of perhaps a dozen or so Art Deco houses of worship anywhere in the city.

SOLD OUT - TOUR: Art Deco on the Upper West Side: Broadway and Riverside Drive (Itinerary No. 9)
2017-08-06 10:30 - 12:30
Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. Reservations required – click here.
A meandering walk across the upper west tracts of the Upper West Side, from West 85th to 103rd streets, Broadway to Riverside Drive. We see work by such stalwart Manhattan Deco icons as Sugarman & Berger, Boak & Paris, and Harvey Wiley Corbett, as well as architects less well known for their Deco productions, including Emery Roth and Rosario Candela. Highlights include Roth’s Normandy Apartments and Corbett’s Master Apartments; the Broadway Fashion Building – four-stories of commercial space in a Moderne glass box; Joan of Arc Junior High School; Boak & Paris’s Midtown (now Metro) Theater; and one of Manhattan’s last surviving Horn & Hardart automat buildings, with splendid Art Deco terra-cotta. If you’ve taken my tour of Art Deco on Central Park West, and wondered what else might be out there closer to the Hudson, this is your chance to find out!

TOUR: Art Deco from Murray Hill to Gramercy Park (Itinerary No. 3)
2017-07-18 17:30 - 19:30
Sponsored by Untapped Cities – reservations required. Click here for information and registration.
Based on Itinerary No. 3 in New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham’s Jazz Age Architecture.
This walk through the east side of Midtown South includes an unusual collection of buildings, each different from the next. We have a surprising modernist apartment building among the genteel town houses of Murray Hill; Ely Jacques Kahn’s most impressive office building (Two Park Avenue; and another Kahn building that’s no slouch); a work by Edgar Brandt, the great French iron master; the iconic Empire State Building; an incomplete attempt by Metropolitan Life to capture the Empire State Building’s “world’s tallest” title; and George and Edward Blum’s Gramercy House, with some of the most enjoyable Art Deco terra-cotta ornament in the city.
