Twenty-three Skiddoo

A business columnist I normally don't read wrote this morning about his favorite buildings. In the article, he mentioned NYC's Chrysler Building and Dallas' Adolphus Hotel. True, both are amazing architectural masterpieces.

However, neither is my personal favorite.

I guess I take the Adolphus for granted living in Dallas, but I was in awe of the Chrysler Building the first time I saw it up close. The Chrysler Building would be my favorite were it not for another less heralded building, the Flatiron Building.

When we took a family trip to New York City several years ago, our hotel was three blocks from the Flatiron. I could walk over in the mornings and sit in Madison Square Park across the street in reverence by myself. Before we left, I was lucky enough to find a great poster of a picture Alfred Stieglitz took in the early 20th century. It's since been framed but patiently awaits the perfect spot on the wall.

Many architectural purists consider the Flatiron Building New York City's first skyscraper though, even at the time of its construction, it was neither the tallest building nor the first steel-framed building. But in 1902, it was the tallest building with a steel frame. As it was being built, the locals anticipated its certain collapse, wrongly assuming the steel frame would never be able to support its own weight. People camped out for days, only to leave frustrated that the Fuller Building, as it was then called, continued to stand.

Situated in midtown, the building rests at the convergence of Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and 23rd Street. Its shape is an imperfect triangle; standing north of the apex and looking south, the building resembles a ship's bow. In fact, Steiglitz once commented that on certain foggy nights, the Flatiron, with a little imagination, looked like a ship traversing the ocean, the fog moving south and making the building seemingly appear to move forward.

Its odd formation did allow for the winter winds of New York City to wreck havoc on the city's fragile early twentieth century dress code. As the winds blew north up Broadway and Fifth, men would converge on 23rd Street. As the winds whirled around the building, the redirected breeze would lift the hems of women's skirts and scandalously show some bare ankle. Men would whistle and cheer. Police dispersed the lewd mobs by shouting "Twenty-three skiddoo".

Designed by the famed Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham, the Flatiron was completed in 1902. The building stands 285 feet high; its apex only measures six feet wide. Announcing the new building, The Fuller Construction Company's advertisement read, "For many reasons this building is unique. It is the cumulative result of all that is known in the art of building, and is equipped with every conceivable convenience that human ingenuity could devise. From a structural standpoint, it is the strongest building ever erected."

The advertisement surmised not just the designer's attitude of the building, but also captured the mood of the city's quickly changing environment. Turn-of-the-20th-century New York City was a very energetic and romantic epoch.

The city was just beginning to replace London as the world's financial center. Theodore Roosevelt, a native New Yorker himself, humbly assumed the presidency upon McKinley's assassination in 1901 and led the nation to historic social reforms. Although electric lamps had illuminated the nighttime streets of the city for several years, its subway system was still under construction.

The bicycle was a craze, particularly among young women of well-to-do-families; the city's church leaders preached against the bicycle's evils, charging that the young women could not serve God and ride a bike in Central Park at the same time. A criminal-turned-author calling himself O.Henry drank absinthe-laced cocktails at Pete's Tavern and wrote short stories in his spare time.

And just around the corner, the Flatiron, the symbol of the city's emerging strength, stood as the city's sentinel.