Ogden Goelet Mansion (at right), ca. 1915. The Goelet family arrived in New York in the 17th century and began their real estate acquisitions early on. Ogden Goelet, made rich by the inherited wealth of his bachelor uncle and father, commissioned architect E. H. Kendall to design him a grand mansion. The four-story stone home, complete with light moat and ornate dormers and chimneys, was even more extravagant on the inside, with interiors designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany's early design firm called Associated Artists. The home was finished in 1884 and celebrated with a small society party of 500! The home hosted lavish events for the next few decades before being razed in 1930, following the death of Odgen's wife the year before. It was the last large mansions on Fifth Avenue below Central Park to be demolished.

Art Deco architecture flourished in Europe and the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. Spurred by the 1925 Paris exhibition Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes which boasted over 16 million visitors, structures such as the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building began dotting the New York City skyline. The following are photos from MCNY's collection that struck me as particularly beautiful in their exemplification of Art Deco architecture.

The design and craftsmanship within the spaces Goelet Building make it among the finest examples of an Art Deco commercial interior. The marble polychromy, the horizontal and vertical battens, the inlay, and the aluminium leaf, characteristic components of the Art Deco, effectively define the sequence of these spaces. Robert Goelet, a financer, and real estate developer wished a building that would be comparable in architectural merit and prestige to the family mansion it replaced and would also complement the use and appearance of the buildings of the adjacent Rockefeller Center, then under construction. The decoration of the ceilings covered with aluminum leaf, with the exception of the Goelet swan, a specific and realistic referent to the client, offers a broad range of stylized and geometricized Art Deco elements.

Goelet Building ARCHITECT: Victor L. S. Hafner; Edward Hall Faile DATE: 1930-32 STYLE: Art Deco The ten-story Goelet Building at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 49th Street, built in 1930-32, was designed by Victor L. S. Hafner in the Art Deco style but modified to exhibit the supporting skeletal frame devised by the engineering firm of E. H. Faile. The spare horizontality of the lower stories’ glazed curtain walls suggests that, stylistically, this building is a transitional monument between the Art Deco and the International style.

Goelet Building, 1935. Considered a transitional moment between the Art Deco and International styles, the 10-story Goelet Building was completed in 1932. Originally created in the Deco style by architect Victor L. S. Hafner, the engineering firm of E. H. Faile modified the design of the upper floors to visibly incorporate the supporting skeletal framing in the facade.The glazed deep green marble curtain wall of lower floors render in a simple horizontal arrangement hearken to the modern International style. The building replaced the 1882 mansion belonging to the Goelet family. Designed to compliment the nearby buildings of Rockefeller Center, this structure had ground floor retail and office spaces on the upper floors. Since 1964 the building has been called the Swiss Center, for the group of Swiss business, working in commercial, cultural, travel and financial activities, who began leasing it then.

605 Fifth Avenue, 1925. Designed in 1924 by architect William Van Alen (of later Chrysler Building fame), this midblock building was forecast by the New York Times to be “one of the finest buildings along Fifth Avenue in this section.” The asymmetrical structure had six full stories of curved windows on one corner. The architect took advantage of the setback of the neighboring church to showcase this innovative feature. Completed in 1925 for the Child's restaurant chain, the resulting edifice of gleaming white limestone and expansive plate glass was called a veritable jewel-box” by a contemporary design magazine. It was said to have been the first building in the U.S. without corner columns. The unique vantage point by which passersby could look right through the curved corner of the building was lost in 1952 with the demolition of the church and the construction of 600 Fifth Avenue, a 26-story office building. Since 1997 the building has been home to TGI Friday's. For many years the facade was painted a bright blue with contrasting red and white awnings. In the last few years, the facade has gone back to white, but a four-story advertisement covers the upper floors (and curved windows).