Downtown Deco

Anthony W. Robins leads a tour of Art Deco masterpieces of lower Manhattan. Towering above the narrow streets bequeathed us by 17th-century New 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. Lesser known delights include a cluster of mid-rise office buildings built for a new insurance district on John Street by such well-known modernists as Ely Jacques Kahn, Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, and Louis Allen Abramson. Tony’s book, “New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham’s Jazz Age Architecture,” recently won a 2017-2018 New York City Book Award from The New York Society Library.