FALL 2009
Every year, I do half-a-dozen public Art Deco tours for the Municipal Art Society. The tours rotate among five itineraries. Once or twice a year I also do a walking tour for the Art Deco Society of New York, and sometimes teach a five-session course on the subject for New York University. And I occasionally lecture on Art Deco for events supported by the New York Council on the Humanities.
SEPTEMBER
Lecture: Art Deco New York: From Rockefeller Center to the Grand Concourse
Wednesday, September 23rd, 8:00 p.m.Sponsored by the Roslyn Landmarks Society. Free and open to the public, thanks to the support of the New York Council on the Humanities "Speakers in the Humanities" program. Call 516-625-4363 for further information.
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. This 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 like Radio City Music Hall.
OCTOBER-NOVEMBER
Course: Glittering Art Deco Metropolis
Sunday afternoons, October 18 to November 15, 2:00 pm to 4:30 p.m.Sponsored by New York University's School of Continuing & Professional Studies. For further information, and to enroll on-line, click here.
Five walks in Manhattan take us to New York's major monuments of Art Deco architecture, buildings that transformed the city into the world's modern metropolis. Downtown, we examine the work of Ralph Walker, "the architect of the century" and designer of the Gothic-modern fantasy of No. 1 Wall Street. Two walks cover East and West 42nd Street and the miraculously urbane urban wonderland of Rockefeller Center. Next, the Garment District illustrates the work of Ely Jacques Kahn. We finish with Central Park West, the great twin-towered apartment buildings, and other Jazz Age fantasies of high living overlooking the Park.
OCTOBER
Tour: Downtown/Financial District
Tuesdays, October 6th, 13th, and 27th, 12:30 p.m. Meet at the Downtown Information Center, 55 Exchange Place, Suite 401.
A new tour offered by the Municipal Art Society. No reservations necessary. Suggested donation: $10.00. IMPORTANT: Adults, please bring photo ID
An hour-and-a-half tour of the Downtown/Wall Street financial district — history, architecture, and art. Tour include Federal Hall, the U.S. Stock Exchange, Trinity Church, Fraunces Tavern, U.S. Custom House, and Bowling Green.
Tour: Give My Regards to Broadway
Sunday, October 9th, 10:00 a.m. Meet at the southeast corner of Broadway and West 44th Street.Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. No reservations necessary. $15 ($10 MAS members)
Walk the streets of "the Great White Way," tracing the history of New York's Broadway theater district from Oscar Hammerstein in the 1890s to Walt Disney in the 1990s to its latest configuration. See the great Broadway theaters built between the turn of the century and the onset of the Great Depression - stunning works of art in themselves, and monuments to the lively history of American theater. The tour includes it all: theaters, skyscrapers, and city planning at its most creative.
Lecture: Behind the Bright Lights: The Great Broadway Theaters
Wednesday, October 28th, 11:00 a.m.Sponsored by Molloy College, Farmingdale (Long Island). Free and open to the public, thanks to the support of the New York Council on the Humanities "Speakers in the Humanities" program.
With three-quarters of a century of history behind them, the forty 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 David Belasco, the self-styled "Bishop of Broadway" - boasts Tiffany glass, paneled wooden ceilings, and murals by the New York Ash-Can 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.
NOVEMBER
Tour: Fancy on Fifth: From Rockefeller Center to the Plaza Hotel
November 1st, 10:00 a.m. Meet at the Urban Center, 457 Madison Avenue at 51st Street.Sponsored by the Municipal Art Society. No reservations necessary. $15 ($10 MAS members)
This stretch of Fifth Avenue evolved from a posh 19th-century residential area to a major 20th-century commercial center. We consider clashing images of a glamorous district -- the 19th-century residential model of mansions, clubs and churches, and the 20th-century model of skyscrapers, hotels and department stores.
Tour: Downtown/Financial District
Tuesdays, November 17th, 12:30 p.m. Meet at the Downtown Information Center, 55 Exchange Place, Suite 401.
A new tour offered by the Municipal Art Society. No reservations necessary. Suggested donation: $10.00. IMPORTANT: Adults, please bring photo ID
An hour-and-a-half tour of the Downtown/Wall Street financial district — history, architecture, and art. Tour include Federal Hall, the U.S. Stock Exchange, Trinity Church, Fraunces Tavern, U.S. Custom House, and Bowling Green.
DECEMBER
Tour: Downtown/Financial District
Tuesday, December 1st, 12:30 p.m. Meet at the Downtown Information Center, 55 Exchange Place, Suite 401.
A new tour offered by the Municipal Art Society. No reservations necessary. Suggested donation: $10.00. IMPORTANT: Adults, please bring photo ID
An hour-and-a-half tour of the Downtown/Wall Street financial district — history, architecture, and art. Tour include Federal Hall, the U.S. Stock Exchange, Trinity Church, Fraunces Tavern, U.S. Custom House, and Bowling Green.
Tour: From Grand Central to Tudor City - Creating East 42nd Street
Sunday, December 6th, 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.By direct reservation only: e-mail trob@pipeline.com for information. $15 per person. Limited to 20 people.
This is a first for us at Before Your Very Eyes: a general sign-up tour not sponsored by another organization. This tour covers four major monuments on a stretch of East 42nd Street that is home to some of Midtown's most impressive architectural monuments: Grand Central Terminal, the Chrysler Building, the Daily News Building, the Ford Foundation Building, and Tudor City.