Anthony W. Robins

BOOK TALK: "New York Art Deco"
2017-07-11 08:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Skyscraper Museum, 39 Battery Place, New York, NY, 10280
Free, but reservations required – RSVP to programs@skyscraper.org. Sponsored by the Skyscraper Museum.
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).

TOUR: The Woolworth Building and its Lobby
2017-07-09 14:00 - 15:30, 2017-05-28 14:00 - 15:30, 2017-04-02 14:00 - 15:30, 2016-12-18 14:00 - 15:30, 2016-12-11 14:00 - 15:30, 2016-11-27 14:00 - 15:30, 2016-11-13 14:00 - 15:30, 2016-10-30 14:00 - 15:30 and 1 more date | 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: The great Art Deco Towers of East 42nd Street (from Itinerary No. 5)
2017-06-27 18:30 - 20:00
Sponsored by the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. The Cooper-Hewitt is mounting a huge show of American art from the Art Deco period: “The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s” (April 7th-August 20th)
This is a tour for Museum members, but membership is open to all, click here. Reservations will be required – watch this space for details.
Forty-Second Street is Midtown Manhattan’s major boulevard of Art Deco skyscrapers, with some of the city’s most famous monuments. On this walk we will take a close look at Raymond Hood’s red-and-white-striped Daily News Building, the Chanin Building with its Rene Chambellan-designed abstract ornament, and the peerless Chrysler Building, perhaps the city’s most famous Art Deco skyscraper. We will also take a peek – for contrast – at nearby Tudor City, built just before Art Deco swept away the notion of borrowing from Europe’s past to design America’s future.

TOUR: Downtown Art Deco (Itinerary No. 1)
2017-06-25 11:00 - 13:00
Reservations required. Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. Information and registration: 212-935-3960 or click here.
Towering above the narrow streets of the old Dutch colony of Nieuw Amsterdam are some of the country’s finest zigzag and streamlined delights, glittering pinnacles of Wall Street prosperity, monuments to the high-flying corporations of 1920s banking, oil, and telecommunications. Unrivaled skyscraper designs include Ralph Walker’s Gothic Modern fantasy of the Irving Trust tower and the Art Deco–encrusted Cities Service headquarters, plus some lesser-known jewels in the insurance district on John Street.

"New York Art Deco" - Joint book talk and signing with Jules Stewart at Shakespeare & Co.
2017-06-21 18:30 | Shakespeare & Co. bookstore, 939 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY
A joint book talk, with Jules Stewart, author of Gotham Rising: New York in the 1930s. At Shakespeare & Co. bookstore. Free and open to the public.
Jules Stewart’s book charts the social life of New York City during the Jazz Age – everything from high society to organized crime. He and I will talk about our respective takes on New York during that tumultuous decade.

New York Art Deco: Book talk, signing and walk (from Itinerary No. 9) on the Upper West Side
2017-06-15 18:30 - 20:00
Reservations required. Sponsored by Landmark West! For information and reservations, click here.
Book talk, signing and tour – New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham’s Jazz Age Architecture. An illustrated talk held in a stunning Art Deco venue inside a well-known Art Deco tower on the Upper West Side. Talk followed by a book signing, and a half-hour walk to visit nearby Art Deco buildings from Itinerary No. 9.

TOUR: Art Deco on the Upper East Side (Itinerary No. 10)
2017-06-14 18:00 - 20:00
Reservations required. Sponsored by the Art Deco Society of New York. For information and registration, click here.
The Upper East Side—Manhattan’s Gold Coast—maintains an aura of conservative respectability, and perhaps as a result never attracted as much Art Deco flash as its counterpart on the west side of Central Park. Nevertheless, tucked among the Beaux-Arts town houses and sedate neo-Georgian apartment buildings, the neighborhood has some remarkable examples by some of the best architects, including an apartment house by Raymond Hood (built for the owner of the Daily News); one of Manhattan’s very few Art Deco town houses; the elegant Carlyle Hotel; and apartment houses by Sloan & Robertson, Horace Ginsberg. and George and Edward Blum—the Blums having designed some of the very first Art Deco apartment buildings anywhere in the city.

Tour and book signing: Art Deco on the Upper East Side (Itinerary No. 10)
2017-06-04 14:00 - 16:00
Reservations required. Sponsored by the Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts. For information and registration, click here. At the end of the walk, there will be a book sale and signing at the Friends’s office.
The Upper East Side—Manhattan’s Gold Coast—maintains an aura of conservative respectability, and perhaps as a result never attracted as much Art Deco flash as its counterpart on the west side of Central Park. Nevertheless, tucked among the Beaux-Arts town houses and sedate neo-Georgian apartment buildings, the neighborhood has some remarkable examples by some of the best architects, including an apartment house by Raymond Hood (built for the owner of the Daily News); one of Manhattan’s very few Art Deco town houses; the elegant Carlyle Hotel; and apartment houses by Sloan & Robertson, Horace Ginsberg. and George and Edward Blum—the Blums having designed some of the very first Art Deco apartment buildings anywhere in the city.

SOLD OUT Tour: Art Deco from Murray Hill to Gramercy Park (Itinerary No. 3)
2017-05-28 11:00 - 13:00
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.

"New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham's Jazz Age Architecture" - Book talk, signing, and reception
2017-05-25 18:30 - 20:30
Sponsored by the Art Deco Society of New York and SUNY Press; reservations required – click here. Tickets $25 ($20 for ADSNY members), include a wine and hors d’oeuvres reception.
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 the newly published New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham’s Jazz Age Architecture (SUNY Press, Excelsior Editions, 2017).

Tour: Art Deco from Murray Hill to Gramercy Park (Itinerary No. 3)
2017-05-21 13:30 - 15:30

TOUR: Art Deco Central Park West (Itinerary No. 8)
2017-05-14 14:00 - 16:00
Reservations required. Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. Information and registration: 212-935-3960.
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.

"New York Art Deco" - Bay area - Book talk and signing
2017-05-04 18:30 - 20:30 | Bellevue Club, 525 Bellevue Avenue, Oakland, CA, 94610
Sponsored by the Art Deco Society of California. Click here for more details. Tickets $15 ($10 for members) at the door. Cocktails at 6:30, talk at 7:30.
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).

Tour: Art Deco in the Fabulous Fifties (Itinerary No. 6)
2017-04-16 14:00 - 16:00
Reservations required – $30 ($20 for MAS members)
This walk (Itinerary No. 6 in New York Art Deco: A Guide…) begins with a cluster of modernistic residences ranging from River House to Southgate apartments to the former Panhellenic Tower. It then pushes westward into the commercial heart of Midtown with visits to the spectacular General Electric Building and the Waldorf-Astoria, New York’s preeminent and beautifully restored skyscraper hotel, before ending at Midtown’s miraculously urbane urban wonderland: Rockefeller Center. For information: 212-935-3960, or watch this space for a direct link to sign up for the tour.

Bus Tour: Art Deco in the Bronx (Itinerary No. 12)
2017-04-09 13:00 - 18:00
Sponsored by the Art Deco Society of New York – reservations required – sign-up here. Early-bird price: $55 for ADSNY members, $80 for ADSNY guests ($35 for ADSNY “Jazz Age” members, $70 for their non-member guests). Bus will pick-up on the Upper East Side.
Join us for a bus tour of the fabulous Art Deco treasures of The Bronx (Itinerary No. 5 in New York Art Deco: A Guide…), led by Anthony W. Robins, author of the forthcoming New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham’s Jazz Age Architecture. Of all the boroughs beyond Manhattan, none can match the Bronx’s reputation as an Art Deco stronghold. Besides the many wonders on the Grand Concourse – notably its famous “fish building” – we will also see the Park Plaza Apartments, first Art Deco apartment house built in the Bronx; Noonan Plaza, its successor in High Bridge; the Wagner Building and the Dollar Savings Bank at Fordham Road; the main Bronx post office; the Bronx County building; the Rainey Gates at the Bronx Zoo; and Herman Ridder Jr. High School on Boston Road – a rare Art Deco public school building. The afternoon will also include a special tour and reception in the splendidly restored Art Deco lobby of an ADSNY member’s stunning apartment building.

Tour: Art Deco 42nd Street (Itinerary No. 5)
2017-03-26 14:00 - 16:00
Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society (MAS) – reservations required. $30 ($20 MAS members)
Itinerary No. 5 in New York Art Deco: A Guide…. 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, and a few others. For information and reservations: 212-935-3960.

Free Art Deco Tour to mark International Tourist Guide Day
2017-02-23 12:00 - 13:00
February 21st, 2017, marks International Tourist Guide Day – or really week, as events go on all week long. As part of the festivities, GANYC (the Guides Association of New York City), of which I am a member, is sponsoring a host of free tours all around the city, including this one.
So, on Thursday February 23rd: A one-hour walk to see three grand Art Deco skyscrapers on East 42nd Street. We visit the Daily News Bulding, the Chrysler Building, and the Chanin Building, three very different skyscrapers by three very different architects, within two blocks of each other. Together, they reshaped the east Midtown skyline. Meet in front of 220 East 42nd Street (former Daily News Building), south side of East 42nd between 2d and 3d avenues. Free, but reservations required – limited to 30 people. Reservations: TonyRobins@pipeline.com Once you’ve reserved, you’ll receive an email with the tour location.

NYU - Five-session course - New York in the Jazz Age: Art Deco architecture from Murray Hill to Washington Heights - Session No. 5
2016-10-27 14:00 - 17:00
Sponsored by New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Education. Thursday afternoons, September 29 and October 6, 13, 20 and 27. For information and registration, click here.
A new course, sequel to last year’s course, “The Art Deco Metropolis,” tracing the brash new style of Art Deco that transformed New York into a modern metropolis. In this course we follow the style’s impact on five Manhattan neighborhoods, mixing commercial with residential buildings. Two walks cover south midtown: Murray Hill and Gramercy Park on the east and the Garment DIstrict on the west. A third looks at the upper edge of Midtown, from Bloomingdales on the east to 20th Century Fox on the west. A fourth follows the transformation of residential architecture on the Upper West Side along Broadway and Riverside Drive, and the fifth explores Washington Heights. Anthony W. Robins is the author of the forthcoming “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 Murray Hill to Washington Heights - Session No. 4
2016-10-20 14:00 - 17:00

NYU - Five-session course - New York in the Jazz Age: Art Deco architecture from Murray Hill to Washington Heights - Session No. 3
2016-10-13 14:00 - 17:00

NYU - Five-session course - New York in the Jazz Age: Art Deco architecture from Murray Hill to Washington Heights - Session No. 2
2016-10-06 14:00 - 17:00

NYU - Five-session course - New York in the Jazz Age: Art Deco architecture from Murray Hill to Washington Heights - Session No. 1
2016-09-29 14:00 - 17:00
