Art Deco architecture of New York City
Art Deco architecture flourished in New York City during the 1920s and 1930s. The style broke with many traditional architectural conventions and was characterized by verticality, ornamentation, and building materials such as plastics, metals, and terra cotta. Art Deco is found in government edifices, commercial projects, and residential buildings in all five boroughs. The architecture of the period was influenced by worldwide decorative arts trends, the rise of mechanization, and New York City's 1916 Zoning Resolution, which favored the setback feature in many buildings.
The exuberant economy of the Roaring Twenties and commercial speculation spurred a citywide building boom. The size and sophistication of Art Deco ranged from towering skyscrapers to modest middle-class housing and municipal buildings. Colorful, lavishly-decorated skyscrapers came to dominate the skyline of Manhattan before the Great Depression ended their construction. The Depression and changing tastes pushed the style to more subdued applications as it spread in the 1930s, becoming a style of choice for infrastructure projects and modern middle-class apartments in the outer boroughs.
A lull in construction during World War II and the 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, the city's Art Deco has been reappraised. Among New York's most treasured and recognizable skyscrapers are the Art Deco Empire State and Chrysler buildings. Art Deco skyscrapers formed the core of the city's skyline for decades and influence modern construction. Many of these buildings are protected by historic preservation laws, while others have been lost to new development or neglect.
Art Deco in the city[edit]
Commercial[edit]
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.[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.[27][2][4]: 7 : 24 The initial prevailing wisdom was that the real estate market would quickly recover.[28] 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 afterward.[29] 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 taxpayer in the city."[4]: 32 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]: 32 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 were pressured by the Rockefeller Center's aggressive courting of tenants.[5]: 58
As the 1930s progressed, the rental market began to improve, and the pace of construction increased.[30] 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 influence of mechanization, and the lush, colorful look of the earlier style now appearing "frivolous".[2]: 69–71 Terra cotta decoration was replaced with smoother, rounded surfaces, and metal-clad streamlining influenced by vehicular designs.[2]: 69–71 Throughout the Art Deco period, brick was the most common building material for ordinary buildings, but even here bricklayers created geometric designs by alternating the color of brick or the coursing.[14]: 115
Art Deco was a popular choice for the movie theaters and stages being built at the time, an apropos choice given that Art Deco itself found influence in design from films, including German Expressionist works such as Fritz Lang's Metropolis.[2]: 64–66 Art Deco theaters in the city included the Ziegfeld Theater, an explicit example of the building-as-set metaphor, with the facade including a proscenium to mirror the one indoors.[2]: 19 As the Roaring Twenties ended, so too did the era of the large movie palace, and smaller Art Deco theaters like the Metro Theater on the Upper West Side and the RKO Midway Theater in Ridgewood, Queens served more modest audiences.[4]: 164, 232
As the city developed northward, Manhattan's most prestigious department and retail stores moved to Midtown.[4]: 121 Along Fifth Avenue, the rise of the Empire State and other Art Deco buildings corresponded with the street's 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 Its exterior features stainless steel window frames paired with marble and limestone, intended to connect the building to Classical architecture.[31]: 210 At 59th Street, Bloomingdale's expanded to encompass an entire city block in 1930, with the new addition featuring a black and gold facade festooned with decorative metal grilles.[4]: 122–3 Additional notable Art Deco department stores across the city include the Sears Roebuck & Company Department Store in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and the Montgomery Ward Department Store in Jamaica, Queens.[32][4]: 237
Other major Art Deco commercial buildings in the city included a number of hotels, including the Waldorf Astoria. The original building with that name had been demolished to make way for the Empire State Building, and the new building drew influence from it, designed more like a skyscraper than a traditional hotel. 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 [4]: 109 Apartment hotels flourished in this period as a way of enjoying luxurious living without the expense of maintaining a private home. The Essex House was at the time of its construction one of the city's largest apartment hotels. It features gilded frozen fountain motifs and floral patterns rising above its main entrance. Further uptown, the Carlyle Hotel combined two buildings (one an apartment house, the other the hotel) and drew influence from Westminster Cathedral, albeit with modern Art Deco touches; the facade is broken up with beige terra cotta stripes inscribed with geometric V's and plant forms.[4]: 130, 173–4