Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Tuesday, March 20, 2012, 2:06 PM
No Comments
It’s time to share my Three Cents Worth on Curbed NY, at the intersection of neighborhood and real estate in the capitol of the world. And I’m simply here to take measurements.
Read today’s 3CW post on Curbed New York:
This is the final chart of the Manhattan scatter graph trifecta. I thought this format was a great way to look at the entirety of the market with better context. This week I am literally long on graphics and short on text. I used the same approach as two weeks ago but divided the market into easier-to-view scaled segments and then placed them on top of each other aligned by years. A few things stood out:…
[click to expand]
[Photo via San Francisco Redevelopment Agency]
1 The defining moment of Art Deco was the 1925 Paris Exposition of Decorative Arts (where the movement would later get its name), and you can see elements of the style in this promotional poster. The font is crisp, sans-serif, showing an elegant efficiency native to the machine age. On the other hand, the image is a woodblock print, emphasizing the importance of luxurious handcraft to the Art Deco era. The Classical influence is clear and literal, with the guy in the toga. Nature in Art Deco is depicted as beautiful, graceful, highly stylized and controlled. (Robert Bonfils, "Paris 1925" color woodblock, Paris 1925, at the 
3 This screen also bears the lacquer technique, which was not only exotic in origin, but also involved a very time-consuming and expensive handcraft process involving not only lacquer, but here also gold, eggshell and mother-of-pearl. The artist/designer, Jean Dunand, had apprenticed with a Japanese master lacquer maker for years. You can also see the Classical references and the stylized forms so common to Art Deco. (Jean Dunand & Séraphin Soudbinine, Lacquer, eggshell and mother-of-pearl screen, Paris 1925-6, at the 
4 French Art Deco featured luxurious furniture handcrafted out of sumptuous and exotic materials. This cabinet references traditional forms of French furniture, but is inlaid with ivory, a reference to (and product of) the elephants of exotic Africa, where France had important colonies. The inlay forms a Classical urn holding cut flowers — again it's stylized and tamed nature as opposed to the rampant vines of the Art Nouveau era. Like much Art Deco furniture, this is low to the ground, with attenuated, elegant lines. (Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann, "État" cabinet, ebony, amaranth and ivory, Paris 1926, at the 
5 This is the interior of the Normandie, the most luxurious oceanliner ever made. Decorated by the titans of French Art Deco design, it featured this first-class dining room, longer than the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles and three decks high, and outfitted with endless crystal panels and chandeliers by Lalique. The doors featured Classical motifs in bronze relief. (The First-Class Dining Room on the S.S. Normandie. Designers included René Lalique, Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann and Jean Dunand, Paris 1934-5, via the 
6 After the 1925 Paris Exposition, American designers began working in the Art Deco style in the US. For American audiences, however, there was less of an emphasis on luxury and exclusivity and more interest in mass-production, accessibility and the machine age. This desk was probably based on a French precedent handmade in expensive shagreen and ivory by Léon Jallot, but it was tweaked for American audiences: it was made from inexpensive synthetic lacquer substitute with metal handles, machine-produced and sold at a department store (where it was not cheap, but still within reach for middle-class consumers). (Dressing table and bench sold at Lord & Taylor, c. 1929, via 
7 Even luxurious products of American Art Deco had a more industrial, machine age feel than their French counterparts. Compare this Donald Deskey screen to the Jean Dunand screen in image 3. While Dunand worked in exotic lacquer and referenced Classical art, Deskey's screen is pure geometry, made using gold and silver leaf, leather and oil paint — still luxurious, but no longer looking to Asia for a new visual vocabulary. (Donald Deskey, Three-panel screen, c. 1928, at the 
8 American Art Deco was preoccupied by speed, a symbol of modern transportation literally and of optimistic forward motion figuratively. By the '30s, American Art Deco had become dominated by the Streamline style, which used things like visual simplicity and automotive styling to represent speed and modernity. This club chair, from 1936, was called the Speed Chair, and was styled to resemble a speedboat. Its designer, Paul Frankl, is among the most important proponents of Art Deco in America. He also created the Skyscraper line of furniture, which used motifs and echoes from New York's famous buildings, again another way of incorporating a modern visual vocabulary. (Paul Frankl, Speed Chair, c. 1936, via 
Mortgage holders may take back more homes this year than any other since the U.S. housing meltdown began in 2006.
However, most banks have since resumed their eviction processes, and the first quarter will likely show a rebound in foreclosure activity, Sharga said.