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New York Architecture
Images-Gramercy Park THE FLATIRON BUILDING (Formerly FULLER BLDG) |
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architect |
Daniel H. Burnham & Co. |
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location |
175 Fifth Ave. |
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date |
1902 |
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style |
Chicago School |
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construction |
steel frame which is covered with a non-load-bearing limestone and terra-cotta facade -22 floors, 87m (285 feet) high |
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type |
Office Building |
| click here for Flatiron gallery | |
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| formerly on the site. | |
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Here are the images from the old sheet music. "In the City Where Nobody Cares" was written in 1910 by Charles Harris, a famous writer of tear-jerker sentimental tunes. The first verse goes thus: "The lights along Broadway were bright as the sun, just after the play had been played, There seemed to be nothing but frolic and fun in all of the happy parade. But one walked alone on the broad street so gay with all of its pitfalls and snares, Just a little white girl on the Great White Way, in the city where nobody cares. (chorus:) She came to the city where nobody cares, as thousands have wandered before, and it's there she will stay, til they lay her away, in the city where nobody cares." The second piece of sheet music is later, from about 1919, and concerns a young man who has gone to the big city but misses his rustic home. The last is a 1905 cover showing an African-American trombonist splitting the Flatiron Building in half with a blast of his instrument. Carrol Krause |
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Designed by the Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, known for his skyscrapers, this steel-framed terra-cotta and stone-clad skyscraper represents the developers' first (and ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to create a new business center north of Wall Street. They built it as a speculative project with the intention of renting out offices to various commercial and financial enterprises. Bearing the influence of architectural trends introduced at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Burnham's eye-catching design combined elements of French and Italian Renaissance architecture in an effort to attract businesses to this formerly residential and retail-oriented neighborhood. The building's triangular plan was a clever response to the awkward site produced by the intersection of Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Its ornate but restrained facade is composed of stone and terra-cotta panels whose forms simulate the effects of rustication. Undulating bays break up the monotony of the building's tall midsection. The overall effect is that of a palazzo stretched to great height. Here, for the first time, the construction of a steel-framed skyscraper was witnessed in its entirety by the general public--a event which generated much response. The building fascinated photographers and was immortalized in the work of Edward Steichen and Alfred Steiglitz. This lyrical building remains the New York's oldest skyscraper. Though responsible of the chicagoan innovative Reliance, Rookery and Monadnock buildings, the architect Daniel H. Burnham, by using an exuberant mix of gothic and Renaissance detailing (also known as Beaux-Arts), was accused of retrograde classicism by other avant-garde architects as Louis Sullivan. Notwithstanding, the Fuller, quickly nicknamed the "Flatiron", was a real tour de force, because it was strictly shaped from this particular triangled site, and largely distant from its nearest neighbors. The entire conception is based upon the classical greek column. First, the building is divided in three parts, the base in rusticated buff limestone with copper-clad windows, the main body of pale-colored bricks and terra-cotta with unusual and gracious undulating oriels, and the capital represented here by arches and columns topped by a heavy projected cornice and a flat balustraded roof. The greek column character was enhanced by the rounded prow, creating the illusion of a freestanding colossal column. Seen under another angle, the Flatiron seems to be only a flat wall. For the little story, the famed New Yorker expression, "Twenty-three skiddoo" came to be because the wind drafts created by the height of the skyscraper raised women petticoats, and constables had to "skiddoo" the men who came to peek! |
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STREETSCAPES/Readers' Questions; From Flat Iron to Flatiron, And an Emery Roth 6-Story By CHRISTOPHER GRAY Published: August 1, 2004, Sunday A Triangular Plot Q. I want to know more about the Flatiron Building and its unique architecture. Who built it, and why was it built the way it was? Are there any special engineering facts related to the building? . . . Marie Williams, Queens. A. Although its shape is distinctive, the Flatiron Building was not praised for its architecture when it opened in 1902, nor was it advanced in its structural design. But it did represent new developments in skyscraper financing and construction practices. Popular mythology holds that the 20-story building was named by New Yorkers who scoffed at its unwieldy shape. But the triangular plot bounded by Broadway, Fifth Avenue and 22nd and 23rd Streets had been known as the ''Flat Iron'' for years, and early drawings for the building even use the ''Flatiron'' name. The building was put up for use as offices by the George A. Fuller Company of Chicago, which had long been a major American contracting firm. It was at first officially known as the Fuller Building, but from its beginnings it was also popularly known as the Flatiron Building. In 1899, the block was bought by Samuel and Mott Newhouse, brothers with extensive mining operations in the West. They were thinking about a 12-story office building but joined with a syndicate headed by Harry S. Black of the Fuller company to increase the height to 20 stories, or 285 feet. That was hardly the tallest in New York -- the 29-story Park Row Building, 391 feet high, was built in 1899 at Ann Street. The Flatiron Building's triangular steel frame was also not particularly innovative, although the engineers, Purdy & Henderson, had to allow for greater than average wind bracing because the building was fairly narrow and had less bulk to provide wind resistance. They designed it so that theoretically the building would tip over intact before the frame failed. The critic Montgomery Schuyler considered the design a lost opportunity. In 1902, he wrote that although it was ''quite the most notorious thing in New York'' and though he admired the detailing of the terra cotta facade (often erroneously described as stone), he was very disappointed in the building's basic character. The three-sided facade, he wrote, ''has not the aspect of an enclosing wall, so much as of a huge screen.'' And the monotonously regular spacing of the fenestration, he wrote, ''denotes want of thought,'' making the structure ''a mere birdcage for your tenant.'' The interior was divided into small office cubicles with interconnecting doors, about 20 on a floor. But in terms of real estate development, the Flatiron represented a new age, where an insular world of New York developers was challenged by out-of-town investors, attracted by the great profits available here in single bursts of skyscraper construction. Traditionally, real estate development had been a local game, controlled by a small group of people from the area. But the advent of skyscrapers -- with their huge budgets and complicated organizational requirements -- opened the way for more sophisticated techniques. Black had taken over the Fuller organization in 1900, and by bringing in outside investors had turned it into a real estate giant. He and his partners retained Daniel H. Burnham, the famous Chicago architect. The Flatiron Building also represents the greater efficiency in construction brought about by such large projects -- for instance, the use of power tools. For a decade, riveting and steel connections had been made by steam-powered tools, depending on a network of small boilers spread over the work site, since steam loses its power over long distances. But the Flatiron steel was connected with air-powered tools, which could operate off one or two central compressors with little drop in power over distance. ''A pneumatic hammer will drive 50 percent to 75 percent more rivets a day than can a gang of men, and only two men are required to operate it,'' The Real Estate Record and Guide said in 1902. Critics' views of the building have changed over the decades. The Landmarks Preservation Commission's guide to city landmarks notes that ''many early 20th- century painters and photographers were inspired by the building's singular form, and it became a world-famous symbol of the romantic New York skyline.'' Copyright New York Times. |
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The Fuller Building, better known as the Flatiron Building, was one of the
tallest buildings in New York City upon its completion in 1902. The
building, at 175 Fifth Avenue in the borough of Manhattan, sits on a
triangular island block at 23rd Street, Fifth Avenue, and Broadway,
facing Madison Square. Architecture The Flatiron Building was designed by Chicago's Daniel Burnham in the Beaux-Arts style. Like a classical Greek column, its limestone and glazed terra-cotta façade is separated into three parts horizontally. Since it was one of the first buildings to use a steel skeleton, the building could be constructed to 285 feet (87 m), which would have been very difficult with other construction methods of that time. The initial design by Daniel Burnham shows a similar design to the one constructed, but with a far more elaborate crown with numerous setbacks near the pinnacle. A clock face can also be seen. However, this was later removed from the design. Cultural impact I found myself agape, admiring a skyscraper — the prow of the Flatiron Building, to be particular, ploughing up through the traffic of Broadway and Fifth Avenue in the late-afternoon light. —H.G. Wells, 1906 The building, which took its name from the triangular lot it was built on (the Flatiron block, so called because it was shaped like a clothes iron), was officially named the Fuller Building after George A. Fuller, founder of the company that financed its construction two years after his death.[3] Locals took an immediate interest in the building, placing bets on how far the debris would spread when the wind knocked it down. The building is also said to have helped coin the phrase "23 skidoo" or scram, from what cops would shout at men who tried to get glimpses of women's dresses being blown up by the winds created by the triangular building. At the rounded tip, the triangular tower is only 6.5 feet (2 meters) wide. The 22-story Flatiron Building, with a height of 285 ft (87 meters), is often considered the oldest surviving skyscraper in Manhattan, though in fact the Park Row Building (1899) is both older and taller. Today the Flatiron is a popular spot for tourist photographs, a National Historic Landmark since 1989[5],[6],[7], and a functioning office building, currently home to several book publishers, most of them under the umbrella of Holtzbrinck Publishers. It was also used as the Daily Bugle building in the Spider-Man films. It is shown in the opening credits of The Late Show With David Letterman as an easily recognizable symbol of the city. The surrounding area of Manhattan is named the Flatiron District for its signature building. |
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