Occasionally I receive a call from some distant place asking me to come and assist them in documenting their heritage.
Such a call came last June from Northern Manhattan where local leaders believed they might have the third largest concentration of Art Deco buildings in the USA. Initially I thought if this were true it would have already been documented. I called my friend and fellow Detroit preservationist, Rebecca Binno Savage for her opinion on the subject. She too was stumped but gave me a few good leads to follow.
After chasing down some books and preparing maps and notes to assist with my visit to New York City, I was off on a plane to seek out these Art Deco treasures.
I arrived in the early morning hours and walked around Manhattan appreciating the iconic Art Deco buildings there-the Empire State, the Chrysler Building and others. Then it occurred to me how these well-known buildings crowded out light and air from buildings built on a less grandiose scale. Soon I would discover how contemporaneous with construction of these skyscrapers, residential structures with similar stylistic details, but on a much smaller scale began popping up next to newly opened subway stops. And the large monumental buildings where people worked had connection with newly constructed buildings where people who worked in the towers lived.
To test my theory I took the "A Train" to its northernmost stop, which deposited me near 207th Street. Initially, the neighborhood appeared bleak. There was a concentration of apartment houses there between four and seven stories high and most of these were quite austere and without any architectural ornamentation. Gradually as I walked throughout the 2.4 square mile area north of 155th Street, I learned to look for specific features-a cornice, doors with curved detail, bricks of different colors or steel frame windows. And gradually an awareness emerged as I documented these fairly simple buildings, that this area might indeed have one of the largest concentration of Art Deco buildings in the USA- except there was a twist.
In reviewing the literature on Art Deco, monumental buildings like
skyscrapers and buildings associated with transportation (bus terminals,
filling stations, etc.) have received the lion's share of attention, but
residential building received short shrift. In McAlester's popular A
Field Guide to American Houses, the authors claim that Art Deco was
"extremely rare in domestic architecture." Despite claims in another book
that apartment houses were the second most prevalent building type behind
filling stations, there were few, if any, illustrations of apartment
houses in this book or in others.
As these buildings revealed themselves to me, block after block, I increasingly felt it necessary to share what I discovered with my colleagues. There were public presentations, handouts in two languages, a printed report and a newspaper article. But after all that was said and done, I felt uncertain of what I had accomplished.
The most positive outcome of my work was helping a few residents and local leaders to appreciate the positive features of their historical built environment. Though what to do with that knowledge now in their hands and that is a dilemma. Active marketing and promotion of these buildings might lead to a wave of redevelopment and displacement like what occurs in many historic areas that are rediscovered. (Especially in New York's white-hot real estate market). This is not necessarily what is best for Northern Manhattan. This area has historically, even to this day, served as home for many different immigrants as the relatively low housing prices make this one of the least expensive places to live in Manhattan.
So if this means that these buildings rest in obscurity a little bit longer despite my efforts, I think that would be best for the buildings and the neighborhood. Though if you ever visit New York City, I encourage you to take the "A Train" to 207th Street and appreciate one of New York's best-kept secrets - the Art Deco styled apartment houses of Northern Manhattan.
Isaac David Kremer is a preservationist living in Detroit. He can be reached at www.isaacdavid.com.
