Before Your Very Eyes!

Your Guide and Lecturer: Tony Robins

Author, lecturer and tour-leader, Tony Robins has been guiding natives and visitors to the city's wonders of steel and stone for twenty-five years. He has led hundreds of walking tours of New York history and architecture for, among others, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Whitney Museum, the Municipal Art Society, the 92nd Street Y, the Organization of American Historians, the Chicago Architectural Foundation, the National Park Service, the Academy of American Poets, the University of Pennsylvania, the State University of New York, the Senior Fulbright Fellows in New York, and the 1992 Democratic National Convention. A founding member and past Vice President of The Art Deco Society of New York, he created the Society's original tour program in 1981.

Tony Robins also lectures on New York history and architecture to audiences ranging from high school students to senior citizen groups, from general audiences to university seminars. He has lectured both in the United States and abroad including, in New York City, the Metropolitan Museum, Columbia University, New York University, Fordham University, Pratt Institute, Cooper-Union, the National Arts Club, the Bard Graduate Center, the Municipal Art Society, the South Street Seaport Museum, and the New School; the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.; in London in the U.K.; in Sydney and Perth in Australia; in San Jose, Costa Rica (in Spanish); and in Rome, Italy, at the University of Rome and the American Academy (in Italian).

More on Tony Robins:

Books

   The World Trade Center (1987)

 

   Heritage Trails New York Guide to Downtown (1995)

 

 Alliance for Downtown New York, Downtown Open House (four self-guided tours to Downtown, 1995-1998)

 Subway Style (New York Transit Museum, 2004) Winner of a 2004 New York City Book Award from the New York Society Library

Articles

New York

• “Lost in Place: A Mini-tour of Hidden New York Spaces,” New York Magazine (October 10th, 2005)
• “Once Upon a Time: Before There Was a SoHo,” SoHo Style (Summer 1999).
• “Courting Beauty: Judges Give Architect Cass Gilbert His Due,” Preservation (October 1998).
• “Behind Broadway’s Bright Lights, A Legacy Endures” (the great Broadway theaters), Gourmet (June 1996).
• “Theaters,” “Movie Palaces,” “Thomas Lamb,” “Herbert J. Krapp,” “Herts & Tallant,” “The World Trade Center,” New York Encyclopedia (Yale University Press, 1995).
• “Touring Houdini’s New York,” New York Times Weekend Section (October 28th, 1994).
• “Riverdale,” Metropolis (July-August 1993).
• “New York from Classic to Moderne: Local Architects Remember,” Everyday Masterpieces (Princeton Architectural Press, 1988)
• “Top This One: The Continuing Saga of the Tallest Building in the World,” Architectural Record (January 1987).
• “The Pastoral Suburb of Fieldston,” Metropolis (December 1984).
• “Raymond Hood’s New York Skyscrapers,” Art Deco News (1984).
• “New York City’s Art Deco Landmarks,” New York’s Inside Design (Vol. 2, No. 1, 1981).

Travel

• “San Jose's Sights in Stone,” New York Times Travel Section (1999).
• “The Stony Side of Costa Rica” (architecture of the cities of the Central Valley), New York Times Travel Section (October 29th, 1995).
• “In Australia’s Great Cities, Art Deco Gleams On,” New York Times Travel Section (May 1st, 1994).
• “World Congress Uncovers Pacific Art Deco,” Progressive Architecture (December 1993).
• “New York Signature on London Landmarks,” New York Times Travel Section (June 21, 1992).

Historic preservation

• "Historic Preservation and Planning: The Limits of Prediction," Journal of the American Planning Association (Vol. 61, No. 1, Winter 1995).
• “Coping with History: Cultural Landmarks,” National Trust for Historic Preservation: Preservation Forum (May-June 1994).
• “Anti-Demolition League Saves Synagogues,” Forward (July 8, 1994).
• “Theater Preservation Update: London 1989,” Architectural Record (November 1989)

Public history installations

• Heritage Trails Historic Sitemarkers, erected in Lower Manhattan 1997-98, revised 2004 (New York's answer to Boston's Liberty Trail)

Interviews

On the subjects of New York history, architecture, and historic preservation:

• Channel 5 Television (Great Britain): on New York's Art Deco architecture
• National Public Radio: On the World Trade Center as an urban icon
• BBC Radio: Renovation of New York's Grand Central Terminal
• WCBS- FM radio: Historic preservation and the New York City Landmarks Commission
• “Straight Talk,” WOR-TV: The great movie palaces
• “Curtain Time,” Crosswalks Cable Television Network: Preservation of New York's Broadway theaters
• Manx Radio: Historic preservation
• Bronx Cable TV: Landmarks of the Bronx

Professional positions and honors

• Founding member and former Vice-President of The Art Deco Society of New York.
• Formerly Director of Education and Programs at the Municipal Art Society
• Formerly Deputy Director of Research and Director of Survey at New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission
• 1997 Rome Prize winner (Fellowship to the American Academy in Rome)