Art Deco architecture of New York City

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Examples of Art Deco architecture. The buildings feature showy metal finishes, polychromatic terra cotta designs, and zigzagging brickwork.
Clockwise from top left: The spire of the Chrysler Building, one of Manhattans's most recognizable skyscrapers; Terra cotta "frozen fountain" motif on the Park Plaza Apartments in the Bronx; entrance of Madison Gardens apartments in Brooklyn; and the interior of the Marine Air Terminal in Queens.

Art Deco architecture flourished in New York City during the 1920s and 1930s, before largely disappearing after World War II. The style is found in government edifices, commercial projects, and residential buildings in all five boroughs. The architecture of the period was influenced not just by decorative arts influences from across the world, but also local zoning regulations.

Their proliferation fueled by the Roaring Twenties and commercial speculation, Art Deco buildings in the city range in size and sophistication from towering skyscrapers and office buildings to modest middle-class housing and municipal buildings. First defined by the colorful, lavishly-decorated skyscrapers of Manhattan, the Great Depression and changing tastes pushed Art Deco to more subdued applications in the 1930s. The lull in construction during World War II and rise of the International Style led to the end of new Art Deco in the city.

After falling out of favor and suffering from neglect during the city's downturn in the latter half of the 20th century, New York's Art Deco has been reappraised; among its most treasured and recognizable buildings are the Art Deco Empire State Building and Chrysler Building, and Art Deco skyscrapers formed the core of the city's skyline. Today, many of New York's Art Deco buildings are protected by historic preservation laws, while others have been lost to development or neglect.

Introduction[]

A monochromatic sketch in charcoal of a larged massed building. It has no windows or ornamentation, but climbs dramatically with piers that set back as the building rises.
One of architect and illustrator Hugh Ferriss' illustrations, demonstrating an approach to fulfilling New York City's setbacks requirements that would come to define the city's Art Deco buildings.

American Art Deco has its origins in European arts, especially the style moderne popularized at the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts from which Art Deco draws its name (Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes). While the United States would not officially participate, Americans—including New York City architect Irwin Chanin[1]: 55 —visited the exposition,[2]: 47  and the government sent a delegation to the expo. Their resulting reports helped spread the style to America.[3]: 6  Other influences included German expressionism, the Austrian Secession, art nouveau, cubism, and the ornament of African and Central and South American cultures.[1]: 8–9 [4]: 4  In America, Art Deco architecture would take on different forms in different regions of the country, influenced by local culture, laws, and tastes.[2]: 42 

Art Deco came into style just as New York itself was being rapidly transformed. An exploding population, flush economic times, cheap credit, and lax zoning combined to encourage a building boom. The real estate market was so frenetic that old buildings were regularly torn down for new construction after standing for only a few years.[5]: 42  Builders tore down twice as many buildings as went up, with the new buildings occupying two or more old lots. The result was that the amount of office space in New York City increased by 92% in the back half of the 1920s.[5]: 49–50 

In New York City specifically, zoning regulations had major impacts on the design of its buildings. The development of the elevator and steel-framed buildings enabled the construction of buildings far taller than ever before—the skyscraper. The rise of ever-larger skyscrapers such as the 40-story Equitable Building helped spur the passage of the United States' first citywide zoning code, the 1916 Zoning Resolution.[6] The regulations, intended to prevent tall buildings from choking out light and air at street level, required tall buildings to "set back" from street level depending on the width of the street and the zoned area.[7] Once a building rose up and set back to cover just 25% of the lot, clients and architects were limited not by city codes but by money and engineering as to the height of their project.[5]: 48  The impact of the new regulations was not felt until later in the decade, as the entry of the United States into World War I slowed construction.[7]

Early buildings built to conform to the new setback codes did so unimaginatively—the Heckscher Building in Midtown (completed 1921) set back evenly like a stack of boxes as it rose—but more novel interpretations of the law would follow.[7] A major influence on the resulting skyscrapers was Finn Eliel Saarinen's second-place entry for Chicago's Tribune Tower, considered a liberating alternative for a skyscraper style unbeholden to either Gothic or Classical architecture.[2]: 7–8  Also influential were architect and illustrator Hugh Ferriss' series of speculative architectural illustrations exploring how to make buildings that met the zoning requirements.[4]: 4 [7][8] Ferriss' illustrations envisioned buildings as sculptural forms rather than simple boxes. Architect Talbot Hamlin described Ferriss' work as "a magic wand to set the American city architecture free from its nightmare [...] No longer was the high building apparently built by the mile and cut off to order, but it was composed break upon break, buttress on buttress. The possibilities of poetry entered in."[5]: 48–49 

Precursors to the Art Deco skyscrapers that would soon go up across the city were buildings such as Raymond Hood's American Radiator Building, which was neo-Gothic in general style but featured abstract ornament that would characterize Art Deco.[9] Another early transitional building was the Madison Belmont Building at 181 Madison Avenue (1924–1925), which featured traditional ornamentation and organization on upper floors, combined with Art Deco motifs on the lower floors. The ironwork was provided by Edgar Brandt, who contributed the entrance gates to the 1925 Paris Exhibition.[3]: 1, 5–6 

Art Deco in the city[]

Vertical style[]

New York has such courage and enthusiasm that everything can be begun again, sent back to the building yard and made into something still greater, something mastered! [...] In reality, the city is hardly more than twenty years old, that is the city which I am talking about, the city which is vertical and on the scale of the new times.

Architect Le Corbusier, 1936[1]: 77 

The buildings that would become described as Art Deco shared several elements. The setback laws resulted in three-dimensional, sculptural buildings, with long, uninterrupted piers rising between columns of windows and decorated spandrels.[4][10] These choices were made to emphasize the height of the buildings,[2]: 37  a choice mimicked even on much shorter buildings built across town. New York's architects were at the forefront of using new materials, including synthetics like Bakelite and Formica plastics, as well as Nirosta, a corrosion-resistant steel alloy that made exterior metal on skyscrapers more feasible.[4][2]: 68  Aluminum's declining price and lighter weight than steel led to it being a common choice for interior and exterior usage.[11] Other favored materials were brick and multicolored terra cotta.[4]

Architectural historian Rosemarie Haag Bletter described the most pronounced element of Art Deco as "its use of sumptuous ornament". The most dynamic elements were reserved for entrances and at the tops of buildings, with multiple materials combined to form dazzling colors or rich texture. Sometimes the buildings were shaded—using darker-colored materials at the base, and then gradually lightening towards the top—to increase the building's visibility.[2]: 37  Art Deco buildings in the city were also richly appointed inside and out with reliefs, mosaics, murals, and other art.[1] Allegorical depictions—such as beehives of industry on the French Building, personifications of virtues at Rockefeller Center, or figures portraying industry and the arts at the International Magazine Building—were common decorative elements.[1]: 47, 72  The entries and lobbies of these skyscrapers often drew direct influence from the painted sets and stages of theaters, with framing like hanging curtains.[2]: 10 

Architect Ely Jacques Kahn commented in 1926 on the emerging style that his brethren were creating with their buildings:

[It] is so characteristic of New York that it would be more logical, by far, to call it a New York Style. [...] Decoration becomes a far more precious thing than a collection of dead leaves, swags, bull's heads and cartouches. It becomes a means of enriching the surface with a play of light and shade, voices and solids. [Today's ornamental forms] respond to the bulk and simplicity of the skyscraper itself.[4]

Deco in New York became intrinsically linked with commercial architecture. Its focus on rich ornamentation and sensory appeal appealed to commercial patrons who wanted an "acceptable" modern style. These developers in turn gave architects a permissive mandate to create in the style, as long as the end result was not too shocking.[2]: 40–43  The buildings rose to the height where the cost of added space equalized with the commercial value of that space.[2]: 13  The emerging style was contemporaneously called the "vertical style", "skyscraper style", or simply "modern",[4] with the characteristic look of setback buildings leading to them being called "wedding cake" buildings.[10]: 79 [12]: 164 

Detail from an entrance to 70 Pine Street, featuring aluminum spandrels with geometric ornamentation and a miniature limestone model of the building itself.

The demand for modern buildings was such that even architectural firms known for more restrained and classical designs adopted the new style. Cross & Cross's main practice was for discreet townhomes and banks, but in the late 1920s they produced modern skyscrapers such as the RCA Victor Building. The 50-story skyscraper turned Gothic tracery into stylized lightning bolts.[13] Another conservative firm that moved to modernistic designs was Walker & Gillette, whose best-known Art Deco building in New York is the Fuller Building.[4] Buildings already being constructed were sometimes appended with Art Deco flourishes; the Paramount Building (1926) had an Art Deco clock tower appended to a Beaux-Arts base.[2]: appx 22B  These buildings were constructed either as headquarters for established and emerging companies, or else speculative projects where money would be drawn from renting out the space in the new building. The design of speculative buildings was chiefly driven by maximizing rentable space, whereas corporate buildings served as advertisements for the corporations themselves—in some cases, sacrificing revenue for what architect Timothy L. Pflueger termed "special architectural appeal". Even with these corporate buildings, however, the owners would often lend space to smaller businesses and treat them as real estate investments.[14]: 162–163  The very buildings often spoke to the business conducted there. The RCA Building's wave motifs represent the power of radio, while the Chrysler Building would have ornamental touches of radiators and hubcaps for the automobile company.[4] With the McGraw-Hill Building,[1]: 61  Wyndham New Yorker Hotel, and Daily News Building, the buildings feature their names in prominent signage or embedded into the very facade. Because the true shape of the building was often hard to grasp for a street-level observer, many of the skyscrapers featured miniature versions of the building itself as part of their ground-level decoration.[15]: 37 [4][16]

In the Financial District and downtown Manhattan, the skyline was quickly transformed by the proliferation of Art Deco high-rises.[4]: 6  Arguably the first Art Deco skyscraper was the Barclay-Vesey Building at 140 West Street, built from 1923 to 1927 and conceived by Ralph Thomas Walker. Its exterior was decorated with motifs derived from Aztec designs, and the lobby featured a vaulting ceiling with frescoes detailing the history of communication.[1]: 111  Other notable Art Deco skyscrapers in downtown include the Irving Trust Company Building (1929–1931), designed with a "curtain" exterior and Hildreth Meiere-produced mosaics in the interior;[1]: 99–102  120 Wall Street (1929–1930), with classic wedding-cake form and a red granite and limestone base;[17]: 71  and the City Bank-Farmers Trust Building, featuring abstract heads along the facade looking down at street level, and bronzed doors featuring transportation methods.[1]: 106–109  The final skyscraper built before World War II in the Financial District was 70 Pine Street, built 1932.[1]: 102  It featured unique double-deck elevators servicing two lobby floors, designed to maximize the profitable space of the small plot.[4][16] In comparison to downtown, which already had skyscrapers dating to the previous century and fewer available plots, Midtown Manhattan was only just beginning to develop its skyline as Art Deco became popular, with its business district booming after the construction of Grand Central Terminal and the undergrounding of previously-exposed train tracks opening up new plots for development. 42nd Street became Midtown's major Art Deco thoroughfare, hosting some of the city's most famous skyscrapers.[4]: 75 

New York's architects were caught in a furious race for the title of tallest building in the world, and several Art Deco buildings vied for the title. By the end of 1930 there were more than 11 building plans on file of more than 60 floors; among them were the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building, both of which increased in height from their 1928 and 1929 plans, respectively.[18] In competition with 40 Wall Street for the title of tallest building, William Van Alen secretly constructed the Chrysler Building's 185 foot (56 m) steel spire within the building itself, hoisting it and securing it into position in a single day, claiming the title of tallest building.[4] The triumph was short-lived; a month later Al Smith updated the plans for the Empire State Building,[19] adding more stories and a 200-foot spire of its own so that dirigibles could moor there.[20] The Chrysler Building would remain the tallest building in the world for just eleven months before being overtaken by the Empire State Building.[4][21]

The Empire State Building towers above the New York skyline in 1937. The many unoccupied and unlit floors of the building can be seen; the building would not be profitable until after World War II.[5]: 62 

The Chrysler Building's spire went up just one day before the October 1929 Wall Street Crash that triggered the economic turmoil of the Great Depression. The immediate impact of the Depression was a sharp contraction in building of all kinds; one architectural firm went from 17 filed plans for buildings up to 30 stories in 1929 to just three plans in 1930, the tallest being four stories.[22] The scope of some existing construction was also downsized; the Metropolitan Life Company intended to capture the title for tallest building with the Metropolitan Life North Building, but construction stopped during the downturn and never resumed, leaving it an "enormous stump" of 31 stories instead of the planned hundred.[4]: 56–7 

In the shadow of the deepening Depression, the Metropolitan Opera abandoned its plans to move to a new three-block complex financed by John D. Rockefeller Jr. Rockefeller decided to proceed with the project, hiring three different architectural firms, including Hood and Harvey Wiley Corbett, who would leave the project to work on the ill-fated Metropolitan Life North Building. The architects envisioned a plan for buildings arranged on several axes, clad in the same materials, windows grouped in vertical columns, and grand entrances. At the center was 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The buildings on the wings of the grand entrance were occupied by foreign governments (French, British, and Italian), who decided on the ornamentation for the building.[4] The Rockefellers earmarked $150,000 ($2,323,805 adjusted for inflation) for art in the plaza alone, filling the space with paintings, reliefs, and sculptural forms.[1]: 16  The decorative features focus on the achievements of humankind, mythology, and stories of education and commerce.[1]: 18, 33 

Commercial[]

The heyday of Art Deco skyscrapers was effectively ended by the Great Depression, but Art Deco had proliferated outwards across the city in myriad forms.[23][4]: 7  Art Deco proved a popular style for an expanding range of modern commercial edifices that proliferated during the period—department stores, news offices, and transportation.[23][2]: 24  The initial prevailing wisdom was that the real estate market would quickly recover as the stock market had drained capital from construction.[24] To tide landowners over until economic conditions improved, many built "taxpayers" on their lots—single or two-story buildings. Despite being intended as temporary, many of these buildings remained for decades afterwards.[25] One such Art Deco taxpayer was the East River Savings Bank on 22 Cortlandt Street, which replaced a fifteen-story building from the 1890s. The New York Times dubbed the lot "the most valuable piece of New York real estate for a tax payer in the city." Despite being a more modest building, the structure is appointed with polished stone eagles, interior marble, and at one time featured a 3,000-square-foot (280 m2) mural of the East River.[4] Completed speculative buildings faced issues in the difficult economy—the Empire State Building took more in as a tourist attraction than from tenants, and office buildings across Midtown felt pinched by the Rockefeller Center's aggressive tactics to lure and keep tenants.[5]: 58 

As the 1930s progressed, the rental market began to improve, and the pace of construction increased.[26] The buildings that went up in this period tended to be more reserved, with grayer, more austere versions of Art Deco; Bletter suggests that this change was due to the lush, colorful look of the earlier style appearing "frivolous" in the 1930s and the influence of mechanization. Terra cotta decoration was replaced with smoother, rounded surfaces, and metal-clad streamlining influenced by vehicular designs.[2]: 69–71 

Art Deco was a popular choice for the movie theaters and stages being built at the time, and apropos choice given that Art Deco itself found influence in design from films, from the German Expressionist films such as Fritz Lang's Metropolis.[2]: 64–66  Deco theaters in the city included the Ziegfeld Theater, an explicit example of the building-as-set designs with the facade including a proscenium to mirror the one indoors.[2]: 19 

The rise of the Empire State and new Deco buildings along Fifth Avenue corresponded with its transformation from a "millionaire's mile" of wealthy residences to middle-class commercial business.[5]: 43–44  The Tiffany & Co. flagship store at 727 Fifth Avenue, built 1940, was designed to feature luxurious amenities including central air conditioning.[1]: 37 

The old Waldorf Astoria hotel had been demolished to make way for the Empire State Building, and the new building for the hotel drew heavy influence from it. Costing $42 million, architects Schultz & Weaver designed twin limestone and brick towers, and included a suite for the President and a private rail line from Grand Central.[1]: 41 

Residential[]

Alongside the commercial boom of the 1920s, New York experienced a huge increase in residential construction; 20% of all new housing built in the United States in the 1920s was built in New York.[14]: 254  Immediately following World War I, the city suffered from a housing shortage, as the population of Greater New York more than doubled from 1890 to 1920 and construction slowed. Rising rents led to riots and rent strikes, and the state and city responded with new tenant laws and an ordinance that exempted new residences from property taxes until 1932. The ordinance had the intended effect, spurring a construction boom.[27]: 300–303  Apartment buildings grew from 39% of construction in 1919 to 77% in 1926.[14]: 254 

The Art Deco era paralleled New Yorkers' shift away from tenement-style housing (multifamily homes with shared facilities) and row houses, towards apartment buildings (single-family rooms with separate bathrooms). In the 1920s, developers began building apartments targeting the middle class.[14]: 252–253  Urban Art Deco was a way of appealing to prospective renters and keep them in the city, rather than the suburbs.[28]: 23  The growth of the subway drove new Art Deco architecture as well. Developers built new speculative housing in the undeveloped areas the new subway lines reached,[29] with the end result being a decentralization of New York's population. While the total number of people living in the city grew 45 percent between 1910 and 1930, Manhattan's population density and total population decreased in the same period.[14]: 204  The great majority of these apartments throughout the boroughs topped out at six stories, because building seven stories or taller required more expensive fireproof materials.[28]: 23 

In Manhattan, Art Deco apartments sprouted up across the borough.[4] Some of the first apartment buildings to receive influence from the Art Deco office buildings and skyscrapers downtown were the sister buildings The Majestic and The Century.[30] Together with The Eldorado, these twin-towered apartments transformed Central Park West's skyline.[4] Emery Roth was responsible for three of the large apartments in this section of town.

The downturn in the housing market of the 1930s encouraged New Dealers to focus on nonprofit and limited-profit housing to renew blighted parts of the city or expand beyond its current limits.[14]: 121–122  Examples of these limited-profit housing initiatives can be found throughout the boroughs, especially in Sunnyside, Queens. To save money, the middle-class Art Deco often used "cast stone" (i.e. concrete) instead of expensive carved stone, reusing molds to repeat designs and shapes.[15]: 24 

In Brooklyn, apartments and homes in the 1920s and 30s filled the previously sparsely-populated land from the island's terminal moraine down to the southern shore.[27]: 303 

The densest concentration of Art Deco buildings in New York is in the west Bronx centered along the Grand Concourse, with roughly 300 buildings constructed between 1935 and 1941.[31]: 60 [4] One of the first, and grandest, Art Deco apartments along the Concourse was the Park Plaza Apartments, completed 1931. Intended to rise ten stories before being damaged by fire during construction, the final building is eight stories and decorated with bright polychromatic terra cotta. Park Plaza was the first Bronx Deco apartments by Horace Ginsberg & Associates, who would help change the face of the borough. These buildings featured Deco hallmarks of geometric patterns and colored brick, with indirectly-lit public interiors floored with tile, framed with metal, and capped by mosaic ceilings. Private interiors featured sunken living rooms, wrap-around windows in the corners, and ample closet space; inside and out these apartments were designed to appeal to the fashion-conscious, "new money" middle class.[14]: 261–263 [31]: 61–64 

Compared to the architects of Manhattan, many of the architects of the Deco in the outer boroughs were not well-known, and some were forgotten in a generation. While the famous architects of skyscrapers often studied at the Beaux-Arts school, the often-Jewish architects of places like the Grand Concourse and Ocean Ave studied at local art schools.[31]: 64–66 

Religious structures[]

Few religious buildings in the Art Deco style were built in New York City. The Church of the Heavenly Rest and St. Luke's Lutheran Church have Art Deco elements to their more traditional, Neo-gothic elements.[32] In Washington Heights, the Fourth Church of Christ, Scientist (now a synagogue) is a rare example of Christian Science Art Deco anywhere in the country.[4] In Queens, the Rego Park Synagogue provides a late example of an Art Deco synagogue.[33]

Schools[]

The first modern school in the city was Public School 98 in the Bronx, one of the first new schools built under a program to establish a separate junior high school program in the city.[34]

Public works[]

The entranceway to the Brooklyn Public Library

The pace of public works spending increased after World War I, and especially during the Depression.[15] Throughout the 1920s, New York's breakneck growth was largely unconstrained and unguided by government policy; no master blueprint for the city's future existed.[14]: 316 

Corruption scandals forced Mayor Jimmy Walker from office in 1932, and Fiorello H. La Guardia assumed the office. La Guardia saw the Depression as an opportunity to remake the city,[14]: 316–317  and spearheaded a bevy of public works projects. La Guardia was a fervent New Dealer, and the city benefited greatly from Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal Works Progress Administration program, established to provide relief. In 1935 and 1936, the city alone received one-seventh of all WPA funds.[35] The money went to projects such as a network of public pools across the city,[35] with Crotona Park in the Bronx and Tompkinsville Pool in Staten Island being built with Art Deco flourishes.[36]

Art Deco's influence affected many aspects of New York's public works during this period; by the late 1930s, most Art Deco buildings were municipal projects, not commercial ones.[2]: 71  The Health Building at 125 Worth Street (c. 1932–1935) has metal grillwork and health-related designs around the entrances, designed by German craftsman , who produced custom metalwork for the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings.[37] Other Art Deco sanitation buildings include the in Queens and the Manhattan Grit Chamber in East Harlem.[38][39] Art Deco is also represented in the city's transit network. The Independent Subway System (IND) lines have stations designed from the late 1920s on. Squire J. Vickers, who designed hundreds of stops for the city's subways, designed Art Deco edifices for stops such as the 181st Street station in Washington Heights, the Fourth Avenue/Ninth Street station in Park Slope, the York Street station in Dumbo, and IND substations like that on West 53rd Street in Midtown.[4]: 117, 220 

Other major Art Deco projects included the New York Municipal Airport, of which Marine Air Terminal remains,[40] and the ventilation tunnels and portals of the Lincoln Tunnel, which opened in 1937 and connect New Jersey and Manhattan.[41]

Legacy and preservation[]

See also: Historic preservation in New York

In 1932, the Museum of Modern Art exhibited a modern architecture show that would introduce the International Style to New Yorkers; museum director Alfred H. Barr Jr. was dismissive of the Art Deco style and tastes of "low", commercial interests.[5]: 77  Where Art Deco maintained links to classicism and favored ornamentation, International Style favored undecorated facades; Bletter summed up the difference between the ethos of International Style as "less is more", and Art Deco as "more than enough."[2]: 41–42, 71–73  While the International Style's impact was blunted by the Depression, it became popular after World War II.[5]: 77  International Style buildings, with their emphasis on airy glass and the horizontal[14]: 180  were now modern and exciting, while Deco was outmoded and linked to the tough times of the Depression.[4]: 7–8 

In comparison to the International Style, Art Deco's role as the first international style, and its importance, were largely forgotten.[2]: 4  Art Deco was not reappraised and formally named and categorized as a style until the 1960s.[4]: 7–8  Writing in 1975, Cervin Robinson noted that by the standard of direct stylistic influence, Art Deco had virtually no impact on contemporary buildings—but by its impact on the character of New York itself, Art Deco "helped crystallize our image of Gotham."[2]: 4 

The decline in New York City's fortunes in the 1960s and 1970s caused the damage and loss of many Art Deco buildings.[31]: 61  The Noonan Plaza Apartments on the Grand Concourse suffered from heavy vandalism, with skylights ripped from frames to sell for scrap metal. It was eventually restored thanks to the efforts of Ginsberg's son and a new owner.[4][42]

The modern historical preservation movement in New York City was sparked by the loss of Old Penn Station, leading to the establishment of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.[43] The Commission is the largest municipal preservation organization in the United States.[44] Some of the first Art Deco buildings so protected were the Chrysler Building and Chanin Building in 1978. Radio City Music Hall's interiors were landmarked the same year after a contentious battle with the Music Hall's owners, who wished to demolish it; the Commission received more than 100,000 signatures urging the landmark status.[45][46]

Some Art Deco buildings were demolished before they were eligible for protection, such as the 12-story Bonwit Teller building at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street.Donald Trump demolished the building in 1980, with the limestone reliefs Trump had promised to the Metropolitan Museum of Art instead jackhammered and destroyed.[47] To avoid landmark status, landowners will sometimes rush to demolish the building or deface the facade.[48] Given that interiors and exteriors of buildings are landmarked separately, even landmarked buildings can see their unique Deco features lost—such as the McGraw-Hill Building, whose unique streamlined metal and enamel lobby was destroyed in a 2021 renovation.[49]

Today, groups such as the Art Deco Society of New York (ADSNY) produce talks and tours about the city's architecture,[50] as well as advocating for the preservation of the city's remaining Deco.[51] New York City Landmarks Commission veteran Anthony W. Robins wrote that decades after the rise and fall of Art Deco, the style "survives and flourishes" in New York, with the once-daring buildings having become historic landmarks of the city.[4]: 8 

Landmarked buildings[]

Below is a listing of city-landmarked Art Deco buildings within New York City. Items marked with a dagger (†) are also (or alternatively) listed on the National Register of Historic Places, those with a double dagger (‡) have landmarked interiors, and those with a section sign (§) are National Historic Landmarks.

Borough Address Name Constructed Landmark Date Reference Registry ID
Bronx 1005 Jerome Avenue Park Plaza Apartments † 1929–31 1981 [52]: 329  NYCL #1077
Bronx 1619 Boston Road Herman Ridder Junior High School 1929–1931 1990 [52]: 326–327  NYCL #1628
Bronx West 205th Street Concourse Yard Bldgs. † 1933 2006 (NRHP) [53] NRHP #06000013
Bronx 1700 Fulton Avenue Crotona Play Center † 1934–1936 2007 [52]: 327  NYCL #2232
Bronx 105–149 West 168th Street Noonan Plaza Apartments 1931 2010 [54] NYCL #2400
Brooklyn Grand Army Plaza Central Library (Brooklyn Public Library) † 1911–1940 1997 [52]: 258  NYCL #1963
Brooklyn 97–105 Willoughby Street † 1929–1930 2004 [52]: 238  NYCL #2144
Brooklyn 450 Fulton Street 1924–25; 1928–29 2005 [52]: 239  NYCL #2170
Brooklyn 4200 Fifth Avenue Sunset Park Play Center ‡ 1936 2007 [52]: 252  NYCL #2242 (exterior), NYCL #2243 (interior)
Brooklyn 47–61 Greenpoint Avenue Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory 1923–1924 2007 [52]: 217–18  NYCL #2264 (Historic District)
Brooklyn 2307 Beverley Road 1932–1940 2012 [55] NYCL #2469
Brooklyn 580 and 582–584 Myrtle Avenue 1932 2015 [56] NYCL #2519
Brooklyn 158 Montague Street 1929–1930 2017 [57] NYCL #2587
Manhattan 330 West 42nd Street McGraw-Hill Building § 1930–31 1979 (NYC)
1989 (NHL) 		[52]: 88–89  NYCL #1050
Manhattan 350 Fifth Avenue Empire State Building § 1929–31 1981 (NYC)
1986 (NHL) 		[52]: 81 [58] NYCL #2000
Manhattan 405 Lexington Avenue Chrysler Building § 1928–30 1978 [52]: 109  NYCL #992
Manhattan 1260 6th Ave Radio City Music Hall ‡ 1932 1978 [52]: 114  NYCL #995
Manhattan 122 East 42nd Street Chanin Building † 1927–1929 1978 [52]: 107–109  NYCL #993
Manhattan Between 5th and 6th Aves, between 48th and 51st Sts Rockefeller Center § 1932–1933 (RCA/GE Building) 1985 [52]: 111–114  NYCL #1446
Manhattan 551 Fifth Avenue Fred F. French Building † ‡ 1926–1927 1986 (NYC)
2004 (NRHP) 		[52]: 105  NRHP #03001514,
NYCL #1415 (exterior),
NYCL #1416 (exterior)
Manhattan 570 Lexington Avenue General Electric Building † 1929–1931 1985 (NYC)
2004 (NRHP) 		[52]: 119  NRHP #03001515,
NYCL #1412
Manhattan 608 Fifth Avenue Goelet (Swiss Center) Building ‡ 1930–32 1992 [52]: 111  NYCL #1810 (exterior), NYCL #1811 (interior)
Manhattan 301 Park Avenue Waldorf Astoria New York ‡ 1929–31 1993 / ‡2017 [52]: 118–119  NYCL #1812 (exterior), NYCL #2591 (interior)
Manhattan 21 West Street Le Rivage Apartments 1929–1931 1998 [52]: 10  NYCL #1999
Manhattan 20 West Street Downtown Athletic Club 1929–1930 1999 [52]: 10  NYCL #2075
Manhattan 1 Wall Street Irving Trust Company Building † 1929–1931 2001 [52]: 11–12  NYCL #2029
Manhattan 2701–2714 Broadway Horn & Hardart Automat Cafeteria Building 1930 2006 [52]: 151  NYCL #2192
Manhattan 22 East 40 Street (273–277 Madison Avenue) 275 Madison Avenue Building 1931 2009 NYCL #2286
Manhattan 1619 Broadway Brill Building 1930–31 2010 NYCL #2387
Manhattan 500–506 Fifth Avenue 500 Fifth Avenue 1929–31 2010 NYCL #2427
Manhattan 70 Pine Street Cities Service Building ‡ 1930–1932 2011 NYCL #2411
Manhattan 86 Trinity Place New York Curb Exchange § 1930–31 2012 NYCL #2515
Manhattan 228 East Broadway 1929–31 2013 NYCL #2529
Manhattan 420 Lexington Avenue Graybar Building 1927 2016 NYCL #2554
Manhattan 511 Lexington Avenue Hotel Lexington 1928–29 2016 NYCL #2559
Manhattan 120–130 West 14th Street 1929 2017 NYCL #2565
Staten Island 168 New Dorp Lane Lane Theater (interior) ‡ 1937–38 1988 [52]: 382  NYCL #1696
Staten Island 6 Victory Blvd Lyons Pool Recreation Center ‡ 1934–36 2008 [59] NYCL #2234

Notes[]

References[]

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Further reading[]

  • David Garrard Lowe, Art Deco in New York
  • Richard Striner & Melissa Blair, Washington and Baltimore Art Deco: A Design History of Neighboring Cities
  • Don Vlack, Art deco architecture in New York, 1920–1940

External links[]

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