Tours Details
Date: 11/9/2024
Start time: 2pm EST
Duration: 2 hours (30min walking)
Meeting Point: 53St and 3Ave
End Point: MoMA
Participants limit: 10
Midtown Modern Art and Architecture Tour
Manhattan’s 53 Street corridor, especially from Third Avenue to Sixth Avenue, is a benchmark for the development of NYC’s 1961 Zoning Resolution, the nation’s first comprehensive city zoning regulation. In addition, several of NYC’s post-WWII iconic buildings are along this street. Not only buildings but, what I might suggest is, the creation of “heroic” open public space—the wide-open Seagram Building plaza to the intimate enclosure of the Paley “Vest Pocket” Park. While 53rd Street is primarily a commercial corridor, one finds high-rise and low-rise residential, a house of worship, an iconic hotel and a globally recognized cultural institution.
The 1961 Zoning Resolution drastically revised the previous zoning resolution to respond to a post-WWII economic boom, the development of modern, high-rise office buildings with open office plans, and the increased use of the automobile. The concept of calculating floor area as applied to each specific site using the formula of the Floor Area Ratio was introduced to establish how large a building could be as it was shaped in concert with revised bulk regulations. It coordinated use and bulk regulations, incorporated parking requirements (a huge issue then as it is today) and emphasized the creation of open space. It added a new family of use groups for Community Facilities (hospitals, libraries, schools etc.). The 1961 Zoning Resolution was substantially revised in 2008 to recognize the character of existing residential neighborhoods with “contextual zoning” and broadened further the designations of special purpose zoning districts (e.g. Island City, Coney Island, Bay Ridge, Midtown, The Garment Center, Forest Hills, LIC Mixed Use et al.). The 1961 Zoning Resolution was substantially amended in 2023 and 2024 in the Mayor’s initiated for The City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality and The CoY for Economic Opportunity and the upcoming CoY for Housing Opportunity.
Some Buildings featured on this tour:
Greenacre Park
The Lipstick Building
The Crystal Pavilion
Citicorp Center
First National City Bank
The Seagram Building
The Racquet and Tennis Club
The Lever House
Samuel Paley Park
666 Fifth Ave
Baccarat Hotel
MoMA
The CBS Bldg.
The NY Hilton
The Citicorp Building Long Island City
Languages
Public tours are in English. Private tours are available in English, Spanish, Italian, French, Russian, Bulgarian and Catalan.
Meeting Point
Your Architect Guide
William M. Singer, AIA, LEED AP BD + C, NCARB
William M. Singer, AIA, LEED AP BD + C, NCARB, is currently a discerning Code and Zoning Specialist for the NYC Department of Buildings. With a long and rich background in designing and constructing major public facilities—including courthouses, schools, transportation hubs, and cultural landmarks—William brings a wealth of knowledge to our tour. His impressive resume includes being a partner at Gruzen Samton Architects, a leading NYC architecture and planning firm, a Senior Fulbright Scholar in Slovenija, with graduate degrees in both Architecture and English. For the exceptional renovation and modernization of El Museo Del Barrio, he was honored with a City of New York Arts Commission Excellence in Design award (2004), a NYS AIA Merit Design Award for Adaptive Reuse (2011) and a Municipal Arts Society Master Works Award for Community Catalyst (2012).
William blends his passion for architecture, urbanism and history into a love of teaching—sharing information and knowledge. His 13 years of teaching in NYU’s Graduate Program for Real Estate Development, where he created and honed his cycle of walking tours, merge with 10 years of providing tours to One To World, the official Fulbright Programming organization in the NYC Metro area, enhances his knowledge of NYC through active engagement with tour colleagues—questions and discourse about NYC significantly sharpen the focus of observing the city. The way to know a city is through one’s feet.
Experience New York with our PhD Architect-led Tours
Our public tours are 2 hours of transformational experiences that connect people with the city on a deeper level. We focus on 8 areas according to the location, neighborhood and their distinct character - weaving culture, history, architecture, art and design in an engaging, story-telling manner to uncover some of the city’s hidden gems and best-kept secrets.
