Anthony W. Robins

Tour: Astoria Center of Israel, with Art Deco murals by Louis Pierre Rigal
2016-05-22 16:30 - 17:30 (America/New_York) | Astoria Center of Israel, 27-35 Crescent Street, New York, 11102
Part of the Sacred Sites Open House Weekend sponsored by the New York Landmarks Conservancy, and co-sponsored by the Art Deco Society of New York. Free of charge, but registration required – click here to book. Doors open Sunday at 4:00 p.m, tour from 4:30 to 5:30.
Tony Robins will lead the tour of the building and its architecture, while art historian Joan Kahr will discuss Rigal’s murals.
Architect Louis Allen Abramson, a leader of the early-20th-century “synagogue center” movement, designed the Classic-Revival-style Astoria Center of Israel in 1925. An admirer of McKim, Mead & White, he later ascribed his early taste for Italian Renaissance-inspired design to “Stanford White’s Italian.” (You can read excerpts from Tony Robins’s 1980 interview with Abramson here.)
An unexpected treat in the sanctuary are the wonderful Art Deco murals added in 1929 by French artist Louis Pierre Rigal, who had exhibited at the 1925 Paris Exposition that gave us the name “Art Deco.” These are Rigal’s only known works in New York besides his much better known murals and mosaic at the Waldorf-Astoria in midtown.

Mini Course: Art Deco on the Upper West Side - Part 1
2016-05-17 10:00 - 12:30
Landmark West! is sponsoring a two-part series exploring the Art Deco Architecture of the Upper West Side. For more information and to register, click here.
Though Art Deco began in New York City as a skyscraper style, it soon spread to other building types. One walk along Central Park West (5/17) and a second along Broadway and Riverside Drive (5/23) offer a close look at the Art Deco buildings that helped create Manhattan’s major residential skyline. We will learn about many famous Upper West Side apartment buildings including the Century, the Majestic, and the El Dorado, as well as the Normandy and the Master Apartments. Other buildings included in the tour are the Broadway Fashion Building, four-stories of commercial space in a Moderne glass box; Joan of Arc Junior High School (once known as “the skyscraper school”); Boak & Paris’s Midtown Theater (now Metro Theater); and one of Manhattan’s last surviving Horn & Hardart automat buildings (with splendid Art Deco terra-cotta).
Approved for 5 hours of Real Estate Continuing Education Credit** All are welcome, whether or not you need continuing education credit!

**Participants will receive a New York State certification for 5.0 hours of study approved by the Secretary of State in accordance with the provisions of Chapter 868 of the Laws of 1977. You must attend both sessions to receive credit for the course.

Tour: Art Deco In Washington Heights
2016-05-15 13:00 - 15:00
Sponsored by the Art Deco Society of New York. 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 & Goldhammer, Charles Kreymborg, and H. Herbert Lillien.
Two taller apartment buildings, by Boak & Paris, offer a more idiosyncratic take on the modernism of the 1930s. Our walk 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.
The tour includes visits to two interiors: the sanctuary of the Hebrew Tabernacle, and the lobby of 250 Cabrini Boulevard, one of the two Boak & Paris buildings. (Please note: space is limited.)

Jane's Walk New York: Help Find Art Deco in Your Own Backyard
2016-05-06 15:00 - 16:30
This year, the Art Deco Society of New York (ADSNY) is partnering with the Municipal Art Society to lead a “Jane’s Walk” event devoted to Art Deco architecture.
Come learn to recognize the special color, geometry and general whiz-bang jazziness of Art Deco architecture. We will consider the different aspects of this wonderful style as seen on half-a-dozen examples along Central Park West on the Upper West Side. Then we will send you off – to your own neighborhood, or any other you’d care to visit – to find as-yet-undocumented Deco buildings to add to ADSNY’s web-site Registry of Art Deco New York.
For more information, and to sign-up, click here.

Tour: The Woolworth Building and its Lobby
2016-04-17 14:00 - 15:30, 2016-03-06 14:00 - 15:30 | Woolworth Building, 233 Broadway, New York
Reservations required (click here, then scroll down to “90-Minute Tour,” click on “Book Now,” select the date “Sun. March 6,” then click (again) on “Book Now”).
Tour of the Woolworth Building , 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 Woolworth Building and its Lobby
2016-04-10 14:00 - 15:30 | Woolworth Building, 233 Broadway, New York
Reservations required (click here, then scroll down to “90-Minute Tour,” click on “Book Now,” select the date “Sun. April 10,” then click (again) on “Book Now”).
Tour of the Woolworth Building , 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.

SOLD OUT Tour: SoHo's Cast-Iron District
2016-04-10 10:30
Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. Reservations required. To register, call 212-935-3960 or register on-line.
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.

Tour: Art Deco on the Upper West Upper West Side (that's not a typo)
2016-04-03 10:00 - 12:00
Sponsored by the Art Deco Society of New York (ADSNY). Reservations required – click here.
A meandering walk across the upper west tracts of the Upper West Side between Broadway and Riverside Drive, from West 85th to 103rd streets. 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 our 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: The Woolworth Building and its Lobby
2016-03-20 14:00 - 15:30 | Woolworth Building, 233 Broadway, New York
Reservations required (click here, then scroll down to “90-Minute Tour,” click on “Book Now,” select the date “Sun. March 20,” then click (again) on “Book Now”).
Tour of the Woolworth Building , 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.

SOLD OUT Tour: Manhattan's Art Deco Interiors
2016-03-13 14:00
Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. 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 Waldorf-Astoria.

Tour: The Woolworth Building and its Lobby
2016-02-28 14:00 - 15:30 | Woolworth Building, 233 Broadway, New York
Reservations required (click here).
Tour of the Woolworth Building , 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.

SOLD OUT Tour: The Woolworth Building and its Lobby
2016-02-28 12:00 - 13:30
Reservations required (click here).
Special tour just for the Municipal Art Society. A 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 on the Woolworth Building, see the blog post.

Course: Urban Genealogy - Learn how to research New York buildings - Session No. 4
2016-02-23 18:00 - 19:45 | Municipal Art Society, 488 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10022
Reservations required – click here.
Learn how to unearth detailed information about New York City buildings in four Tuesday evening lectures in February (2, 9, 16, 23) 6:00 to 7:45 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: Urban Genealogy - Learn how to research New York buildings - Session No. 3
2016-02-16 18:00 - 19:45 | Municipal Art Society, 488 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10022

Tour: The Woolworth Building and its Lobby
2016-02-14 14:00 - 15:30, 2016-01-31 14:00 - 15:30, 2016-01-17 14:00 - 15:30, 2015-12-20 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: Urban Genealogy - Learn how to research New York buildings - Session No. 2
2016-02-09 18:00 - 19:45 | Municipal Art Society, 488 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10022

RESCHEDULED POST-BLIZZARD! Tour: Manhattan's Art Deco Interiors
2016-02-07 14:00 - 16:00
Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. Reservations required. To register, call 212-935-3960 or click here.
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 Waldorf-Astoria.

Course: Urban Genealogy - Learn how to research New York buildings - Session No. 1
2016-02-02 18:00 - 19:45 | Municipal Art Society, 488 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10022

SOLD OUT Tour: The Woolworth Building and its Lobby
2015-12-27 14:00 - 15:30
Reservations required (click here).
Special tour just for the MAS. A 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 on the Woolworth Building, see the blog post.

Tour: Rockefeller Center
2015-12-25 10:00
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
2015-10-25 14:00 - 15:30, 2015-09-27 14:00 - 15:30, 2015-09-20 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. And an article by David Dunlap in the New York Times that appeared New Years Day!

Tour: Art Deco on the Upper Upper West Side (that's not a typo)
2015-10-25 10:30 - 12:30
Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society (M.A.S.) Reservations required – click here. $30 ($20 MAS members).
A meandering walk across the upper west tracts of the Upper West Side, from West 85th to 103rd streets. 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 our 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: Bus tour of Art Deco Brooklyn (NOTE DATE CHANGE)
2015-10-04 13:00 - 17:00
Sponsored by the Art Deco Society of New York. Reservations required – click here to be taken to the Art Deco Society “events” web site, and scroll down to “Bus Tour.”
Once a separate city, today New York’s most populous borough, Brooklyn flourished mightily during the 1920s and ’30s. This bus tour takes in samples of Brooklyn’s best Deco: apartment houses that can rival the Bronx; a phone company headquarters by Ralph Walker that can rival his lower Manhattan behemoths; a small but stunning skyscraper by one of the architects of Rockefeller Center; a department store; an elevated subway station, and more.
$75 ($55 members of ADSNY, $35 “Young Deco Friends”; $60 “Young Deco Friends” guests)

Tour: Art Deco 42nd Street
2015-09-20 10:30 - 12:30
Reservations required. $30 ($20 MAS members)
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: 212-935-3960, or click here for a direct link to sign up for the tour.
