Happy Birthday Irwin S. Chanin, Art Deco Hero

Irwin Chanin in 1927. Photo: Wikipedia.

New York, NY. 25 Central Park West (The Century). Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2017.

New York, NY. 115 Central Park West (The Majestic). Photo: Wikipedia/David Shankbone.

Happy Birthday Irwin S. Chanin, Art Deco Hero!

by Samuel D. Gruber

Today is the birthday of  Irwin Salmon Chanin, an architect and developer who helped promote the Art Deco skyscraper in New York City in the roaring jazzy 1920s. Born October 29, 1891 (died 24 February 1988), Chanin was the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland and from Poltava, (now Ukraine). As an American architect and the head of a family construction company, he gained fame and fortune  building New York City Art Deco commercial and residential towers and Broadway theaters. He helped greatly transform the look of Manhattan in the 1920s. David Dunlap wrote in the New York Times at the time of his death that the Chanin family "built some of New York's most eye-catching structures in the late 1920's and early 30's. The Chanins helped make popular a streamlined, geometric, modernistic style of architecture."

Chanin and company designed and built the he Chanin Building on 42^nd Street, and The Century and The Majestic apartment towers on Central Park West and t among many other projects.

New York, NY. The Chanin Building. Exterior, 1928. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012.

New York, NY. The Chanin Building. Exterior, 1928. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012.

New York, NY. The Chanin Building. Exterior, 1928. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012.

Irwin Chanin graduated from Cooper Union in 1915 with a degree in civil engineering, and in 1919, with his brother Henry, founded the Chanin Construction Company. Beginning in 1925, they built six theaters on Broadway. Irwin was President of Chanin Theatres Corporation, and his brother Henry I. Chanin was Treasurer. 

The Chanin Building, which Chanin designed in the Art Deco style with Sloan & Robertson and Jacques Delamarr, includes mural sculpture by Rene Paul Chambellan. The building was the tallest skyscraper in midtown when built, but was soon surpassed by the Chrysler building across the street. More important than its height was the rich skin of ornament that covered the lower parts of the building that were visible from the street.

Soon after, Chanin developed The Majestic and The Century, with Jacques Delamarre at the head of the design team. These were among the first residential buildings to use what had been predominantly an office building style of architecture. Both Art Deco style buildings have 30 stories and are noteworthy for their twin towers, and since their erection have been landmarks on Central Park West, clearly visible form Central Park. The construction of the Century includes cantilevered floor slabs which allow the elimination of corner supports - and thus open the corners up for windows.

Other significant buildings include the Richard Rodgers Theater, the Lincoln Hotel (now Row NYC Hotel), the Beacon Hotel and Theater, and the World Apparel Center.

Chanin was one of several interwar Jewish architects, including Albert Buchman and Ely Jacques Kahn as well as developers like Abe N. Adelson, who favored the Art Deco style. Together, they brought to Manhattan a special American brand of modernism before the arrival beginning in the late 1930s of European refugee modern architects, some of whom would further change New York's skyline, turning it of a time from one of brick and stone to one of glass. 
 

New York, NY. The Chanin Building. Exterior, 1928. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012.

New York, NY. The Chanin Building. Exterior, 1928. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012.

New York, NY. The Chanin Building. Exterior, 1928. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012

New York, NY. The Chanin Building. Exterior relief sculpture, 1928. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012.

New York, NY. The Chanin Building. Lobby sculpture by Rene Paul Chambellan, 1928. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012.

According to Wikipedia, "Chanin was also known for developing the "Green Acres" section of Valley Stream, NY. Ground broke in 1936 but only Phase I (known as the "old section") was completed before World War II. After the war construction resumed and the "new section" was completed by 1959. This section included the balance of the residential homes, the Forest Road Elementary School, the Green Acres Shopping Center (now, the Green Acres Mall) and the Green Acres Garden Apartments.?"

In 1981, Cooper Union renamed its school of architecture for Irwin Chanin.

See: David W. Dunlap (February 26, 1988). "Irwin Chanin, Builder of Theaters And Art Deco Towers, Dies at 96 (Obituary)". The New York Times. Retrieved June 21, 2011.