New York Art Deco: Birds, Beasts & Blooms

New York City, arguably the world's Art Deco capital, is well known for its striking and still iconic towers that were early expressions of the style writ large--most famously the Empire State and Chrysler buildings, both of which still speak so eloquently of the future and the machine age that continues to move us all forward. Art Deco is drawn in steel, in tile, in brass, in bronze, and in stone upon great buildings and small--and in the details, as so engagingly shown here. The reader is brought, for example, into the extraordinary Fred F. French Building at 551 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, a treasure house of the form whose ornate lobby is a wonder of sparkling seduction in all directions: racing above is a fan palm and fleur de lis-decorated architrave, and golden Assyrian equestrian archers on a field of onyx take aim while stunning chandeliers set with crystal feathers and bronze shoot out their own thin arrows of illumination. Beyond the famous, we are invited to consider little-seen stunners beside the Grand Concourse in the Bronx or upon the face of an apartment house in Brooklyn Heights. Featuring both the legendary and the little known, on display here, through all-new photography, is Art Deco New York as never seen before.