For hundreds of years, New York City has been a sort of mystical dreamland in which everything is the biggest, the best, or the only. Thus, almost everything that has to do with New York is famous: the Statue of Liberty, the United Nations, Broadway theater, Zabbars, David Letterman, etc. In New York even the streets are known for their personalities: Madison Avenue for its shops, Park Avenue for its flowers, Fifth Avenue for its museums and parades, and 52d Street for its jazz. However, there is one street that is more famous than any other: namely Broadway. Unlike every other street in Manhattan, Broadway runs the entire length of Manhattan and defies its rigid grid pattern. Starting at the Northwest corner of the island, Broadway meanders southeast to Bowling Green. As Broadway works its way east, it periodically crosses major avenues that are already intersecting lesser cross streets. While this creates chaotic traffic patterns, Broadway also gives the intersection new meaning and significance. In fact, wherever Broadway crosses a major avenue, the unique space is marked by a name and icon: Columbus Circle, at 59th and Eighth Avenue, is denoted by a pillar in honor of Columbus, Times Square, at 42d and Seventh, is marked by the Times Tower and glowing neon, and Herald Square at 34th and Sixth Avenue, is marked by a small park, A&S Plaza, and Macy's. Wherever Broadway crosses an intersection, it gives it new meaning and significance. Thus it seems appropriate that the intersection of Fifth Avenue, 23d Street, and Broadway be denoted in a similar fashion.

At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, Daniel Hudson Burnbaum (1846-1912), Chicago's leading architect, did just that. He examined the lot created by Fifth Avenue, Broadway, 23d, and 22d Streets and designed a structure that would follow this triangular shape all the way to the twentieth floor. [Plate 1] I am speaking of the legendary Flatiron Building, officially named the Fuller Building after George Fuller, located at 175 Fifth Avenue. Erected in 1903, the Flatiron commanded Broadway like no structure had done before. It stood proud in the middle of the street like a tall ship ready to sail up Broadway at any moment.

Thirty years later, with advent of the Empire State Building and tremendous new views, the uniqueness of Burnbaum's design became even more apparent. While other buildings, viewed from the 86th floor observation deck, were lost in a sea of concrete, the triangular Flatiron shape was instantly recognizable. [Plate 2] Even today, when many building are three times as tall, the Flatiron holds its own and stands out in the clearing.

Yet, the Flatiron Building is much more than a extruded wedge between some streets. It was actually given credit for being the first steel-skeletoned skyscraper, there were actually dozens of steel framed buildings built in New York in the 1880's. More impressively, in a time when heights were determined by materials and the number of flights a person could comfortably walk up, Burnbaum incorporated six elevators which allowed the Flatiron to rise 307 feet and to claim the title of World's tallest building until the erection of Cass Gilbert's sixty-storey Woolworth Building in 1913.

While the Flatiron is an engineering marvel, it is also a beautiful display of extraordinary masonry work. "Here rusticated limestone is uniformly detailed from ground to sky, in the manner of an elevatored palazzo" (Elliot Willensky and Norval White. AIA Guide to New York City. 3d ed. New York: HBJ, 1988. 189). Designed in the Beaux-Arts tradition, the Flatiron emphasizes the ornamentation of the Italian and French Renaissances. Following the Aristitealian idea of beginning, middle, and end, the exterior of the Flatiron is divided into three horizontal sections: the base, the shaft, and the capital.

The base is comprised of the first five floors. Yet from across the street, one might think that the base is only four floors since the first two floors appear to be one giant floor. This effect is achieved by employing colossal pilasters and the arches (that mark the building's entrances on Fifth and Broadway) that extend the height of both floors. The arches are surrounded by the columns and the pilasters are composed of alternating smooth-faced with patterned stone. On the third and fourth floors the motif of alternation is echoed by simpler rusticated limestone. [Plate 3] Also in the third floor entablature, a decorative circle above each of the arches emphasizes the entrance ways and suggest a central vertical symmetry. Finally, the heavily ornamented fifth story, filled with abstract floral motifs and medallions containing fleur de lys [Plates 4 & 5], is perhaps the most exciting band of the Flatiron. (Perhaps Burnbaum chose emphasize the fifth floor to remind us of the Flatiron's Fifth Avenue residence since there is know clear cornice line on Fifth Avenue or Broadway.) It shows off the abilities of the carvers and clearly notates the division between the base and shaft.

When viewed from a distance, the masonry of the shaft, floors six through seventeen, looks tame compared to rabid fleur de lys of the fifth floor. However, if one were to look at the shaft through a telephoto lense, they would not believe the level of minute detail maintained throughout the twelve floors of the terra cotta. [Plate 6] One may almost believe that Burnbaum was influenced by Louis Sullivan for the Flatiron's hundreds of windows appear to be staring at the street. [Plate 6] In attempt to give some order to this sea of windows and terra cotta, Burnbaum selected to raise three bays on each of the two main facades. While these bays are only convex for eight floors (seven through fourteen), they are a brilliant way suggesting verticality and of breaking up the monotony. Instead of looking at a dull flat wall, one sees the raised bays and follows them towards the capital. Furthermore, the building can be read as a poem with the rhyme scheme ABAABAABA; the A bays are flat and contain two windows while the B bays are slightly convex and contain three bays. [Plate 7] Finally, Burnbaum continues the idea of central symmetry since the middle B rises directly from the great arched entrance ways below.

Echoing the base, the capital is divided into three bands. The eighteenth floor maintains the proportions of the shaft's floors, but simultaneously introduces a more elaborate carving style which appears in the nineteenth and twentieth floors. Thus, by accenting qualities from both the shaft and the capital, the eighteenth floor makes a smooth transition. Repeating the colossal order from the first and second floors, the nineteenth and twentieth floors are linked together with colossal pilasters. Between each of these pilasters is a two story arched window. While the offices behind are the same dimensions as on any other floor, the facade might lead a pedestrian to think that these windows shell a great ballroom in the sky. More importantly, these large windows bring unity to the building by clearly marking the Flatiron's nine side bays; as they span the width of two of the shaft's windows below, the building seems to have resolved in AAAAAAAAA. Finally, the building is capped with a heavy stone entablature and balustrade that is periodically divided by squat piers.

While the four-bayed back facade on East 22d Street maintains the basic typography the two primary sides, it makes no reference to the convex bays. [Plate 8] Perhaps space constraints mandated that there must be an even number of bays. However, it is possible that Burnbaum intended this back wall to take second place to the two side facades; for the structure was defined more by the intersection of Fifth and Broadway than it was by 22d Street. Furthermore, Burnbaum designed rounded corners as if to encourage movement around the building. Joseph Pennell noted in 1912, "As all the exterior walls will remain untouched by other structures, the architects have been able to ornament all sides, which gives it a completeness and finish which is lost in most buildings." Although the acute, six foot wide corner on 23d Street is sharp and presents exaggerated perspectives, its curvature invites a pedestrian to walk around and gaze from all sides.

Unfortunately, the some of the mysticism of the Flatiron dies when one explores its interior. Unlike later office buildings, only one of the Flatiron's stores is accessible from within the Flatiron thus forcing office employees to exit the building to buy something from a store within the building. Though an add published in 1903 by the Fuller Development Company boasted of the flexibility of the floors, my walk through made me think otherwise. The core of the building was made of six elevator shafts, one staircase, and public hallways. Then offices could be placed in the front or the back of the building. This is already limiting, however it gets worse. Today the building is occupied by primarily four publishing companies. Instead of having the unity of one central door, offices are haphazardly divided along the public hallways. Finally, though each window provides light and decent views, how easy is it to set up an office in a six foot wide triangular room with rounded walls?

While the building now seems impractical, we should not be too quick to criticize it. In fact, its utility is much greater than similar, yet smaller 1904 Times Tower which is currently 70% vacant. Furthermore, Robert Stern quite eloquently justified the Flatiron in his 1986 book, Pride of Place:

The Flatiron revolutionized the institution of the office building. No longer was the design problem confined through maximizing profit through maximizing height and rentable square footage. The tall building would now be something more than a real estate venture; it would be a permanent symbol of corporate pride, monumental and religious in its ambitions.

As Randolph Rodger's statue of William Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State, looks on from Madison Square Park, the Flatiron, indeed, radiates a feeling of timelessness and class. [Plate 9]

Though the Flatiron has been tariffed for eighty years now, it has not lost it uniqueness. Above all other qualities, the Flatiron is most famous for its triangular shape. While many "skyscrapers" in the early 1900's found themselves surrounded on all sides by other buildings, the Flatiron stands proudly alone at the edge of Madison Square Park. Its unique shape is actually determined by layout of the street. For East 23d Street is crossed not only by 5th Avenue, but by Broadway as well. Rather than abandoning this awkward lot, Burnbaum took full advantage and utilized all of its space to emphasize his creation.

1. x-ray eyes only see the steel structure revealed in old photographs taken during construction
2. 6 rapid running Otis hydraulic elevators
3. mahogany and quartered oak wood
4. "From downtown, it appeared at first glance, yet another enormous palazzo, but as one looked back on it from Madison Square it revealed itself as a towering column." -Robert A.M.Stern Pride of Place (1986)
5. "It was ironic, but predictable, that this new triumph was not built in stolid, practical Chicago, but in flashy, newspaper- and magazine-oriented, hucksterish New York. Officially called the Fuller Building after the prominent firm of building contractors who built and owned it, the name "Flatiron Building" was a joking reference to the building's shape." -Robert A.M.Stern Pride of Place (1986)
6. Above...indifferently, the Flatiron looms...superhuman, vibrant with a life of its own, from its hundred eyes it stares...-Grace Mayer Once upon a City (1958)
7. As you lean and gaze from the toppest floors on houses below, which from those floors seem huts, it may occur to you that precisely as these huts were once regarded as supreme achievements, so, one of these days, from other and higher floors, the Flatiron may seem a hut itself.-Munsy's Magazine (1905)
8. Burnham's Flatiron Building...was the first to come close to the ideal skyscraper-an inhabited tower standing forever free. -Robert A.M.Stern Pride of Place (1986)
9. Note the ornate, yet restrained facade, whose undulating walls and sharp corneres, topped by a classic cornice, result in a dramatic perspective.-Gerald Wolfe New York (1975)

Flatiron: A photographic history of the world's first steel frame skyscraper 1901-1990
Washington D.C.: American Institute of Architects Press. c1990
Peter Gwillim Kreitler