If there’s a genre of antiques that suits New York best, it is Art Deco. Even today, the city still dreams in the Deco style, which reached its peak between the mid-1920s and World War II. Manhattan is dotted with first-rate examples of the streamlined, machine-age, and, above all, elegant style, from the Chrysler Building to the Sherry Netherland Hotel.

“Deco represented modernity,” historian David Garrard Lowe said. Mr. Lowe, who is the author of “Art Deco New York,” said that while the style began in France, it reached its height — literally — in New York. “It was a very urban style and it was perfect for the city,” Mr. Lowe said.

But you don’t have to buy an entire building to have a piece of this history; classic examples of Art Deco decorative arts are on display at a number of New York antiques stores.

RELATED: Key Moments in Art Deco.

At High Style Deco (224 W. 18th St., between Seventh and Eighth avenues, 212-647-0035), the 1920s and ’30s are in full swing. Here, owner Howard Williams specializes in French and American Deco pieces, capturing in pitch-perfect detail the most luxurious décor of the period.

The single-room gallery is packed with period pieces: streamlined commodes, black and crème-colored lacquered sideboards, mirror-surfaced tables, sharkskin and mohair upholstered chairs. A walk through the room allows the visitor to forget the present and be whisked to the set of a Howard Hawks movie.

“I’ve loved the period since I was a child and walked into Radio City Music Hall. I said ‘God, that’s it,'” Mr. Williams said.

After a career as an art dealer, Mr. Williams opened High Style Deco in 2003. Its stock is varied, but entirely in mint condition. “I want everything to look like it did when it was brand-new,” Mr. Williams said. “Art Deco isn’t like the furniture of the 19th century, in that it’s meant to look like it did when it was original.”

Pieces range from a hubcap-shaped chrome chandelier ($3,475) attributed to Walter von Nessen (1889–1943) to a nickel-plated champagne cooler ($2,975) designed by Tommi Parzinger (1903–81). These German émigré designers are two sides of the Deco coin. Nessen pioneered the use of industrial materials such as aluminum and Bakelite for his lamp designs; Parzinger’s designs interpret American Deco through the hand-tooled tradition and rarefied materials of European craft.

Mr. Williams is also currently selling pieces by celebrated Deco designer Donald Deskey (1894–89). In the world of interior design, Deskey is the gold — or chrome — standard of American Deco, having designed the interior of Radio City Music Hall.

One showstopper is a Deskey-designed walnut and nickel detailed sideboard ($18,475) that dates to 1935. The large, streamlined piece — complete with black-lacquered stripes — brings to mind the rounded curves of an ocean liner.

For shoppers seeking pieces in a different price range, Depression Modern (150 Sullivan St. at Houston Street, 212-982-5699) offers an assortment of Art Moderne pieces, including sofas, coffee tables, and antique bars, all selected by shop owner Michael Smith. An American variant of Art Deco, Art Moderne is characterized by aerodynamic, mass-market designs.

Depression Modern, which opened in 1978, occupies a first-floor storefront and a large basement level. The store is set with the period details of a stylish American home of the ’30s and ’40s, from the checkered linoleum floor to the antique cocktail shakers to the black-and-white photographs of Clark Gable and other Hollywood actors interspersed with the furniture.

Depression Modern features desks by Stow Davis, a Grand Rapids, Mich., furniture manufacturer from the period, as well as pieces by Gilbert Rohde (1894–1944), who is known for his unembellished, Bauhaus-influenced designs for the furniture manufacturer Herman Miller.

But the store’s inventory is likely to change week to week. Mr. Smith said he typically sells 80% of his stock each week. Prices range between $1,200 and $2,400 for a table. Upholstered furniture goes for between $800 and $1,800. An Art Moderne lamp can be had for $155, while a cocktail set goes for $75.

Art Deco closer to its French source can be found at Maison Gérard (53 E. 10th St., between Broadway and University Place, 212-674-7611). The Greenwich Village store, which was founded in 1974, sells pieces by Jules LeLeu (1883–1961) and Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann (1879–1933).

“Art Deco is really a French idea first. France still had all the craftsmen in place,” founder Gerard Widdershoven said. “So when the new style was introduced, the French were really set up better than anyone else to produce these things.”

A knockout 1954 mahogany cabinet by LeLeu with a mother-of-pearl inlay is priced at $68,000. Maison Gerard also has three pairs of painted glass panels from the S.S. Normandie, the famed French luxury ocean liner that caught fire and sank in New York Harbor in 1942.

Designed by Jean Dupas (1882–1964), the panels typify the luxuriousness and glamour of Art Deco, as well as the style’s roots in the French atelier tradition of craftsmanship. Pinnacles of Art Deco, their excellence is also reflected in their price tag. Each pair goes for $120,000.