John Tauranac

Events

John Tauranac will be "Zoom-talking" on the subject of New York City subway maps for LandmarkWest on Tuesday evening, December 8th, 2020 at 6 p.m. The talk, which will feature the most recent MTA maps and his newest is called "How to Map Your Local Subway." Here's the web site: https://www.landmarkwest.org/publicprograms/

A week later, on the 15th at 6 p.m., he will be giving a talk on mapping the subway for the Mechanics and Tradesmen's Institute called "The Good, The Bad, and the Better."

Next spring, Tauranac's class at NYU's School of Professional Studies will be on the history of Public Transportation in New York City.

Selected Publications

Manhattan's Little Secrets

Tauranac deals with subjects that guidebooks usually ignore and passersby ordinarily overlook. There’s a statue of Belgium that was originally Germany, and a buffalo hunt depicted on the Manhattan Bridge, and a clock in a sidewalk. A sarcophagus stands in a public park, and the stones from the donjon that had incarcerated Joan of Arc now serve as the base for a statue that honors her. An architect’s likeness is worked into the statuary of a building that he designed (and, no, it’s not Cass Gilbert in the lobby of the Woolworth Building), a David Haas trompe l’oeil doesn’t fool all the eyes, and there’s an apocalyptic vision of a collapsing Brooklyn Bridge on a cathedral wall.

The Empire State Building: The Making of a Landmark

It took Tauranac longer to research and write the book than the architects and builders took to design and construct the building. That seems to put the miracle of the building into perspective.

New York From the Air: A Story of Architecture

The great aerial photographer, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, whose photographs absolutely sparkle, is the star of this book, and he gets – and deserves – top billing. Tauranac is just happy to be playing in the orchestra.

The View From the 86th Floor

Manhattan Block By Block: A Street Atlas

The New York Times said that Manhattan Block By Block: A Street Atlas "offers just about all the critical information a site-seeker might need – and then some."

Tauranac's Line of Maps

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