Boak & Paris/Boak & Raad: New York Architects
A Book Talk by Annice Alt
This event is full
Thursday, April 9, 2015
6:30 pm
232 East 11th Street
At the height of the building boom in the 1920s, two young architects Russell Boak and Hyman Paris broke away from the very-busy Emery Roth firm. While the Crash of 1929 stopped most construction, they were still very active until 1932, the low point of the Depression. Work picked up for them again as they pioneered in the new Art Deco style. Christopher Gray has written that “Together the architects did two remarkable things: they survived and even prospered during the 1930s, when more established architects could not, and they developed an elegant model for the urbane but down-sized apartment building in Depression-era New York.” Boak & Paris also designed the landmarked movie theater, the Metro. Postwar, Russell Boak had a new partner Thomas Raad with whom he designed new apartment buildings in the Midcentury Modern style. Elihu Rose, whose firm Rose Associates gave them many commissions, considers that “Boak was an unsung architect who was incapable of doing a bad drawing, a bad design. No one is comparable. Boak just had taste, he had class.” Annice Alt will speak about the firm’s works, with an emphasis on those that are contributory to New York’s Historic Districts.