Well, it's been a long time coming -- and if you're one of the people who expressed interest more than a few months ago, you
may have forgotten even signing up for this newsletter -- but here it is, Volume 1 No. 1 of the Art Deco Metropolis
Newsletter.
Is this newsletter for you? It includes news about Art Deco architecture and Deco goings on around New York City -- the
world's indisputable Art Deco Metropolis. The news will be items I pick up around town, but it will become better as you --
the subscribers -- send in tidbits you think should be incorporated (though the responsibility for including them or not will rest
with your humble editor).
The newsletter will also include links back to the Art Deco Metropolis site, as appropriate.
If you decide this newsletter is not for you, please just e-mail me back a request to be removed from the list. We'll be sorry
to see you go, but that's preferable to irritating folks with unwanted e-mail (I know I hate it).
Hope you enjoy, and if you do, recommend us to your fellow Decophiles!
Tony Robins, editor and webmaster, Art Deco Metropolis
http://www.pipeline.com/~trob/artdeco.htm
Ou est le Bronx? Bronx Deco makes it into French arts competition
An inquiry to Art Deco Metropolis from France asked if the Park Plaza Apartments was to be found in 1) Greenwich
Village, 2) Central Park West, or 3) the Bronx. Why? The writer was entering a competition sponsored by a French
magazine, Art & Décoration , and that was one of the questions! How many New Yorkers know what and where Park
Plaza is, never mind the French? If you want to know where it is, visit our unofficial list of official Deco landmarks:
www.pipeline.com/~trob/decomark.htm And if you'd like to read excerpts from a 1980s interview with its architect, Marvin
Fine, visit: http://www.pipeline.com/~trob/intervw.htm
Notes from Staten Island:
Staten Island today has barely a handful of Art Deco buildings. One of the best is the Ambassador Apartments in St. George
-- sadly, not yet a New York City Landmark. An article in the Sunday New York Times (July 16, 2000, City Section, p.8)
recounts the mystery of the six-foot tall metal Peacocks that once adorned the Ambassador's entrance. David Goldfarb, of
the Preservation League of Staten Island -- http://www.preserve.org/plsi/ -- has been tracking the peacocks for years, from a
SoHo store to several private owners. Stay tuned.
Deco renewed? Or Deco defaced?
During the last year, major work has been undertaken at two of New York's most fabled Deco landmarks: Rockefeller
Center, and the Chrysler Building. All the work was submitted for approval to the New York Landmarks Commission,
which issued the necessary permits. But there is some question about the appropriateness of the work.
At Rockefeller Center, a major renovation included the expansion of the Fifth Avenue storefront windows in the Maison
Francaise and the British Empire Building. This may seem picky, but the uniform shop windows were an important element
unifying the Center's varied buildings. And the Deco detailing of the underground shopping concourse has apparently been
destroyed in a major remodeling -- but that part of the center isn't included in the Landmark designation.
At the Chrysler Building, a major restoration effort has brought back the painted lobby ceiling to its original splendor --
including the removal of the vacuous "down-lights" that had been punched into it decades ago. But the same restoration has
eliminated the former entrance to the Chrysler showroom at the corner, to the dismay of many of the building's admirers.
All of which reminds us that while landmark designation offers serious protection, Deco lovers still have to be vigilant, and
available to bring our particular perspective to hearings on proposals like these.
1) Several new reviews of Deco books (one on European Deco, three on New York Deco architects).
http://www.pipeline.com/~trob/decobook.htm
2) A new section of guide books and articles now available from Art Deco Metropolis.
http://www.pipeline.com/~trob/publicat.htm
Links -- the start of what we hope will become the most comprehensive set of Deco links on the web
Upcoming NYC tour for individual sign-ups: [NB: rescheduled from 9/17 to 9/24!]
A walking tour of Art Deco New York, led by yours truly, sponsored
by the The Art Deco Society of New York. Sunday morning, September 24, 2000.
Details at the site: http://www.pipeline.com/~trob/upcoming.htm
And watch for the upcoming edition of the ADSNY's publication "The Modernist"
-- it includes an article by your correspondent on Downtown Deco, along with
many, many other articles on Art Deco by many, many other writers.
Deco tour of a lifetime:
November tour of Art Deco Havana. E-mail us for further info.
What is your favorite New York Art Deco building? And why? Results to be revealed in Issue No. 2! To be included, please e-mail your submission by September 15, 2000.
Did you find it worth the effort to click on the title in your e-mail in-box?
Requests for future issues?
Let us know!
Art Deco Metropolis
Tony Robins, editor and web master
(Who is he? click here: http://www.pipeline.net/~trob/your.htm)