We return to Manhattan for the Legacy of Letters urban lettering walk this fall with an investigation of the Upper East Side from 59th Street to 96th Street. The area encompasses both Lenox Hill and Carnegie Hill, two largely residential neighborhoods. But there are numerous institutions from museums to private schools, libraries, churches and government buildings to liven things up. And there are the commercial corridors of Lexington Avenue and Third Avenue that will yield a few interesting examples of store signs. The Upper East Side is deceptively quiet visually. We will discover its hidden lettering gems, ranging from the classical to the modern to the funky; from carved house numbers to the occasional neon sign.

Paul Shaw is a designer and a design historian. He has been leading lettering tours of New York City neighborhoods for 10 years and of other cities, both here and in Italy, since 1997. As a designer he specializes in letterforms from calligraphy to type design. Paul has designed or co-designed 18 fonts, including Kolo, Donatello and Old Claude. As a historian he has written or lectured about Bartolomeo Sanvito, W.A. Dwiggins, Oswald Cooper, Frederic W. Goudy, George Salter, Phil Gruskin, Hermann Zapf and others.

Meeting place and itinerary will be emailed a few days in advance of the tour.