Last year, Albert Bialek, president of real estate consulting firm Albert Bialek Associates, gained control of the Metro, an Art Deco Upper West Side landmark, from leaseholder John Souto. Souto had a 49-year lease on the property, which had formerly served as a pornography house, art-house movie theatre and two national cinema chains.

Bialek is now shopping around the building, at 2626 Broadway between 99th and 100th streets, to potential tenants, and has been in discussions since March with Wingspan Arts, a 10-year-old non-profit arts education group, according to the New York Times. Wingspan’s proposal would see the theater double in size by excavating below grade 30 to 50 feet, bringing the square footage to around 3,000 square feet. [more]

A selection of photos from Richard Berenholtz’s New York Deco, from left: the book’s cover, 40 West 40th Street, 181 Madison Avenue and the old GE tower. All photos copyright Richard Berenholtz from New York Deco.

The most recent real estate boom brought New York City eye-popping real estate prices and loans that still haunt developers and building owners.

An earlier economic boom in the 1920s, followed by another devastating bust, produced the opulent Art Deco designs of many existing New York City skyscrapers.

These buildings are highlighted in New York Deco, a forthcoming book of photographs by architect-turned-photographer Richard Berenholtz. The 130 photos (see a few samples, above) are accompanied by quotations from famous New Yorkers who lived in the city in the 1920s and 1930s.

The mosaics, murals and sculptures that adorned the city’s Art Deco buildings are particularly striking in contrast to the stalled construction fears and architectural scale-backs that have marked New York City over the past year.  More

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