About New York
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More infoNew York City is one of the richest cities in the United States when it comes to architecture. Any style of architecture can be found somewhere in New York. Like Chicago, New York had to build upward. However, New York's real estate was not only expensive, but also very limited.
Lots of construction took place in New York in the 1920's and into the early 1930's. New York was the modern city and set the style for the rest of the country. Because of the large amounts of building during this period, New York has a lot of Art Deco architecture. However, much of New York's Art Deco is from the early period often referred to as zigzag. New York is also strong in PWA Moderne, Art Deco's second phase. The final phase of Art Deco, Streamline Moderne, is not as common in New York as in some other cities. Many of the streamline buildings that New York had have since been destroyed.
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Pennsylvania Station was designed by McKim, Mead & White and completed in 1911. In 1963, this great train station was destroyed. One of the good things that came out of its destruction was the 1965 Landmarks Preservation Law which has helped saved many of New York's other important buildings. The other thing that the destruction of Penn Station brought about was increased awareness throughout the country of the importance of the preservation of architecture, and particularly train stations. Many other cities have since remodeled and preserved their train stations including Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and St. Louis. In addition, New York's other great train station, Grand Central, was also renovated during recent years.
I first visited New York in 1994. Although I took a lot of pictures, I didn't have many from that trip that were suitable for this page. Through my job, I had the fortune to spend three weeks in New York in February 1998. The weather was surprisingly mild for February and I had the chance to see lots of great buildings on the weekends. Again, I took lots of pictures, but didn't get the quality that I would have liked for this page. I also just didn't have enough time to see everything I wanted to see.
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I still have my subway card, so I guess I will have to plan another trip back there soon. I think I could spend a week in New York just surveying the buildings. The feeling of walking in Manhattan among all those buildings is indescribable.
It would be impossible to show all the important buildings in New York. My collection of pictures are what I had that would work on this page. I have left out some very important buildings because I didn't get pictures of them or because the pictures didn't turn out. In addition, all my pictures are from Manhattan. The other boroughs have some important architecture but I did not make it to any of them.