Art Deco Upper West Side with Anthony Robins

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Cost: $70 for LW! members; $80 for non-members (fee includes both tours)

Join architectural historian Anthony W. Robins as he leads a two-part series to explore the Art Deco Architecture of the Upper West Side.  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).

Writer, historian, lecturer, and guide, Anthony W. Robins has led countless visitors through the grand American metropolis.  He has lectured for museums, universities, and private groups around the world.  Formerly Director of Survey at New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission and Director of Education and Programs at New York’s Municipal Art Society, he was the winner of a 1997 Rome Prize fellowship to the American Academy in Rome.  He has been published in The New York Times, Gourmet, Connoisseur, Architectural Record, Progressive Architecture, New York’s Inside Design, SoHo Style, and Metropolis.  He has taught at Williams College, Pratt Institute, New York University, and Columbia University.  His books include: Subway Style (Stewart,Tabori & Chang, 2004), Classics of American Architecture: The World Trade Center (Pineapple Press, 1987; revised edition 2012), and Grand Central Terminal: 100 Years of a New York Landmark (Abrams, 2013).  His latest book, New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham’s Jazz Age Architecture, will be published by SUNY Press in 2017.  A long-time member of the Art Deco Society of New York, he currently chairs its tour committee.