Since 2017 ADSNY has offered free outreach programs to adult audiences in underserved communities throughout the city with our Telling the Art Deco Stories of our Neighborhoods (TADS) program.

 

Telling the Art Deco Stories of our Neighborhoods provides free programming focused on Art Deco architecture and design of residential and public buildings in a wide range of neighborhoods throughout the city. These neighborhoods flourished in the 1920s and 30s as the subway system expanded into each borough and developers competed to attract residents of the flourishing new working class by offering the latest Art Deco design and modern amenities in their residential buildings.

 

Throughout the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and upper Manhattan there are still hundreds of significant Deco buildings. These neighborhoods, each one rich with Art Deco architecture and design, possess their own diverse 1920s and 30s cultural history that contributed to the development of NYC.

 

Since many current residents of these neighborhoods are unacquainted with the architectural and historical significance of buildings they live in and pass each day, Telling the Art Deco Stories of our Neighborhoods seeks to remedy that through collaborations with local community partners such as public libraries, community centers, religious institutions, and older adult centers.

 

These community partners, with their long-established relationships with the diverse neighborhoods they serve, help ADSNY create public awareness of this under-appreciated architectural and cultural legacy through our free in-person and online illustrated lectures and cultural walking tours that ADSNY custom designs for residents in each of these underserved neighborhoods in the five boroughs.

 

Telling the Art Deco Stories of the Neighborhoods, invites the local community to learn about its heritage, and how their neighborhood and borough contributes to the broader cultural landscape of NYC’s urban fabric. The program promotes greater understanding of the architectural and cultural heritage of their communities, encourages preservation of culture, art and architecture and enhances pride and support for preservation in their neighborhood, their borough and their city.
 

In the early years of this program ADSNY partnered with public libraries and community centers offering free live lectures and walking tours led by architectural historians. During the pandemic ADSNY moved these programs to an online format offering a special series of engaging illustrated video programs. Today these talks are part of ADSNY’s Deco on Demand video series, now with 18 Telling the Art Deco Stories of our Neighborhood programs that can be accessed on ADSNY’s website at https://www.artdeco.org/deco-on-demand-videos.

Always eager to expand this important outreach program, in late 2023 ADSNY reimagined TADS with five borough specific programs targeted to an all a new audience, New York's Older Adult Centers throughout the city. ADSNY brought this program to seniors in 45 older adult centers in all the boroughs, to wide acclaim.

 

In ADSNY’s 2024-25 season we continue to build on these community partnerships by providing all new free programs to directors of Older Adult Centers, offering five Telling the Art Deco Stories of our Neighborhood online programs, via Zoom, presented by architectural historian Matt Postal.

 

This exciting community program is made possible by grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and New York City’s Cultural Development Fund as well as the generosity of ADSNY donors.