New York Deco

New York's most obvious examples of the streamlined architectural style-the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building and Rockefeller Center-figure prominently in this book, but it's the less notorious buildings and the attention given to architectural details that shine brightest in this paean to old Gotham. Evoking the emotional appeal of interiors, Berenholtz captures the scintillating gold mosaics within the reception hall of the Irving Trust Building. An added enticement is the inclusion of lesser known landmarks that will be familiar to careful observers of late twentieth cinematography: The Lenox Lounge once played host to jazz greats Billie Holiday and John Coltrane and was featured in Spike Lee's Malcolm X; Scorsese buffs will recognize the gritty glamour of the Airline Diner from Goodfellas. Because of the book's diminutive size, some studies, most notably of Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building, aren't as powerful as they could be, but interiors and exterior bric-a-brac, often overlooked in New York architecture books, take center stage here.