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Art Deco can be found in virtually every town in the country, no matter how small, whether in a WPA courthouse or the curving glass façade of a derelict shoe store. Here is a highly personal romp around the country that shows the style in its many moods.
1 CHRYSLER BUILDING, NEW YORK CITY
It hasn't been the world's tallest skyscraper since 1931, but this building is still Top Hat Deco at its pinnacle. Tap-dance your way through a revolving door and wrap your imagination around the woodwork of the elevator cabs. Look up, look down, and don't forget to look back at the sign that says 42ND STREET. 405 LEXINGTON AVE. While you're here, cross the street and visit the lobby of the Chanin Building (122 E. 42nd St.)—a different strain of Deco, but no less enthusiastic.
2 ROCKEFELLER CENTER AND RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL, NEW YORK CITY
Rockefeller Center is the Acropolis of Art Deco, and Radio City the Parthenon. At the Center, notable for its power and sobriety, every detail is worth a closer look, from the perpetual dusk of the 30 Rockefeller Plaza lobby, with its murals of buff laborers heaving and ho-ing, to the glass panel over the Fifth Avenue entrance of Façonnable (best after dark, when it's illuminated). At Radio City, don't miss the carpeting and the sublime Donald Deskey furniture (what little remains of it), and peek through every open door you encounter. Highlights include the mezzanine level men's smoking room and women's powder room. BETWEEN FIFTH AVE. AND AVE. OF THE AMERICAS FROM 47TH TO 51ST STS.
3 ART DECO HISTORIC DISTRICT, MIAMI BEACH
Eat, breathe, and live Deco in a collection of streamlined buildings unrivaled in the history of escapism. Imagine leaving a Chicago or Detroit winter for this curvy land of mermaids, bubbles, and speed lines—and there are no sharp corners to hurt yourself on. Still, it's best not to look too closely. This beauty really is only skin-deep. BETWEEN OCEAN DR. AND LENOX AVE. FROM SIXTH TO 23RD STS.
4 FILM CENTER BUILDING, NEW YORK CITY
You'd never know that a spectacular example of Mayan Deco awaits you in the tiny lobby of this otherwise unremarkable commercial building. Ely Jacques Kahn jazzed up many of his office buildings in Manhattan with bright terra-cotta tile work, and this 1928 lobby with a gold-leaf ceiling is his masterpiece: a little bit of Chichén Itzá in Hell's Kitchen. 630 NINTH AVE.
5 McGRAW-HILL BUILDING, NEW YORK CITY
You're at the far end of the Deco spectrum here, almost International Style, and indeed it's hard to know how to categorize this 1930 tour de force by Raymond Hood. It's highly streamlined, its lobby has some amazing things happening with stainless steel and glass, and—as if the design weren't enough—it's blue. 330 W. 42ND ST. Two other great blue buildings of the period are in Los Angeles: the Eastern Columbia Building (849 S. Broadway) and the Wiltern Theater (3790 Wilshire Blvd.).
6 UNION TERMINAL, CINCINNATI
Finished in 1933, the half-domed Union Terminal looks like a band shell...or is it a radio...or a utopian World's Fair pavilion? No other train station, no other Art Deco building this large, looks quite like this. The cascade of fountains leading to it is no small part of its charm. 1301 WESTERN AVE.; www.cincymuseum.org
7 GUARDIAN BUILDING, DETROIT
Have an hour to spare on your next business trip to Detroit? Here's more Mayan madness from the 1920's, but on a huge scale that will make you think twice about what this city once was. The soaring lobby includes a Tiffany clock, Rookwood pottery, and brilliantly colored ceramic tiles from the local Pewabic Pottery. Many buildings strive to evoke cathedrals; this one succeeds. 500 GRISWOLD ST.
8 PIONEER ZEPHYR, CHICAGO
This three-car train started the streamlining craze in 1934—before the decade was done, tricycles and pencil sharpeners were streamlined. When it was new, in the darkest year of the Depression, the train might as well have been a spaceship; today, its futuristic lines seem poignant. There's a lesson there somewhere. MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY, S. LAKE SHORE DR., AT 57TH ST.; www.msichicago.org
9 CASINO THEATER & BALLROOM, AVALON, CATALINA ISLAND, CALIFORNIA
Many cities have a Deco theater, but not a round one, like this landmark on an island off the southern California coast. Downstairs there's a domed movie theater with hallucinogenic murals; upstairs, overlooking the Pacific, is the most famous swing ballroom of them all, where 5,000 people used to dance the night away. It's a miracle of engineering, really—why didn't the dancing disturb everybody watching the movie? 1 CASINO WAY; 310/510-0179 FOR MOVIES; FOR TOURS, 310/510-2500 OR www.scico.com/cirs/maincasino.html
10 CITY HALL, BURBANK, CALIFORNIA
Art Deco civic buildings from the WPA era abound, but Burbank may have the best of them all. Its city hall features tutti-frutti marble work, heroic murals, and a sweeping Moderne staircase on which you half expect to see Blondie and Dagwood. This was a building designed to make you believe in government again, and it does. 275 E. OLIVE AVE.
11 BULLOCKS WILSHIRE, LOS ANGELES
Once the most elegant department store in the city, Bullocks Wilshire was a highly refined example of 1920's Deco, full of sophisticated Constructivist plays on geometry. The store was already beginning its descent into a Norma Desmond-like condition when it closed after the civil unrest of 1992. Today it is home to a law school, periodically open to the public for tours. 3050 WILSHIRE BLVD.; 213/738-8240
12 COCA-COLA BOTTLING PLANT, LOS ANGELES
The SS Coca-Cola is a peculiarly American building: such a happy building, with portholes, nautical railings, and a bridge, as if it were about to set sail for Europe. This 1936 bottling plant thoroughly messes with your head by jumbling up images of travel, luxury, industry, modernity, and soft drinks. Talk about branding! 1334 S. CENTRAL AVE. (INTERIOR NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC)
13 OVIATT BUILDING, LOS ANGELES
A rare and glamorous building that has survived in downtown L.A. against all odds. Its owner visited the 1925 Paris Exposition and came back a believer, incorporating a great deal of Lalique glass in the dazzling, faceted storefront and lobby. Originally a haberdashery, today it houses the restaurant Cicada. 617 S. OLIVE ST.
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