Rainy Afternoon

The Shake Shack, continued

I just learned that Danny Meyer is opening yet another Shake Shack, this one in the Fulton Mall in Brooklyn. These uppity-duppity hamburger joints are now ubiquitous, and it bugs me that one of them stands in Madison Square Park. I don't care that this was the original Shack. Now that it's a chain, its design and logo are no longer distinct.(Frankly I never thought its design worthy of Madison Square to begin with). I say the Shack's presence cheapens the park. To say nothing of all the space it hogs, what with all those lines of people waiting for an hour to eat one of those hamburgers. Why should a chain restaurant be allowed to profit from this unique public space at the foot of the Flatiron? Would the public tolerate the sight of a McDonald's Golden Arch there? Somehow I don't think so.

Flatiron: the documentary

I'm working now with filmmaker Charles Hobson on a documentary based on my book. He's done a lot of interesting stuff; check out his website: www.vanguarddocumentaries.com. I've never worked in film before. It's just another way of telling a story. Instead of written words, there are images. Gazillons of them. I'm blown away by how much work goes into producing just a few minutes of film.

Our photographer spent an entire day down at the Flatiron, shooting it and the streets around it from different angles. Each shot is a different point of view, and the hook for a new story.

One of the first moving pictures ever made consisted of montages of the just-finished Flatiron Building. It was shot in the fall of 1903. And now here we are, 107 years later, making another movie, starring the Flatiron.

Sunday, Nov. 7 at the foot of the Flatiron Building

A Writer In the City

The one-graf bio on my book jacket states that I live on Long Island. But no more. This past summer my husband and I, after 26 years in the 'burbs, moved back to the city, to the Upper West Side, where my grandparents, then parents lived, and where I was born, and where Nick and I first met, more than 35 years ago, and where our first son, Alex, was born. I wrote my first book, a bio of the great urban thinker Jane Jacobs, and then THE FLATIRON in my house in the suburbs, in isolation, and it felt all wrong to be stuck out there, writing about the city. All the while, I was longing to be living where my narratives were taking place. New York is my home, and I'm finally home again. Now I wake up every day and buy my newspaper from the little Yemeni-owned store down the block and my fruit from the Bengali guy on the corner who's there 24-hours-a-day in the summer (yes, I'm indulging myself here with a play on Jane Jacobs' famous "sidewalk ballet" in THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES.) When I turn onto Broadway, I look over the used books for sale on the tables lining the sidewalk. I admire the buildings along West End Avenue--I live just steps from the Ansonia, Henry Hardenbergh's gorgeous Beaux-Arts extravaganza. I subway around, often debarking at the 23rd Street station for no particular reason, and walking towards the Flatiron Building. Guess I'm not finished with it yet, even though the book's written. The Flatiron pulls me in, like pins towards a magnet. I don't try to resist its pull. That's how it is with stories: you just follow them, before you know what they are. When it's time to put them into words, you'll know.

Billy Dell, one of the foremen on the Flatiron job in 1902

Today I was back at the Flatiron Building, where I always seem to end up, across the street at Eisenberg's Sandwich Shop. There I met with the great-grandson of Billy Dell, one of the foremen at the Flatiron construction site in 1902. When Thomas Farawell came across his great-grandfather's name while reading my book, he contacted me. Whenever my father and I walked past the Flatiron, Thomas told me today, he'd say, "Your great-grandfather built this!" Billy "Bull" Dell came to New York from Chicago with his pal Sam Parks, the violent and corrupt leader of the Ironworkers Union, whom George Fuller paid handsomely to keep his rank-and-file from striking at Fuller Company construction sites.

Thomas brought along a photo to show me: his great-grandfather seated with eight other men, all dressed in sharply pressed suits and high collars. Looks to have been taken sometime in the 1890s. Next to Dell sits Sam Parks. Thomas is desperate to know more about Bull Dell, who, Thomas said, started out as a union organizer working with Parks, who went about construction sites, "inviting" men to join the Ironworkers Union. Dell eventually had his own contracting company in the tony Trinity Building and a beautiful home on the best block in Jersey City, where all the politicians had their houses. So where, Thomas wonders, did Bull Dell get all that money? Mmmmmm...My parents, Thomas said, never talked about their grandfather's business. Although there were vague stories of Bull Dell keeping guns in his house, along with the beautiful silver and other objects that only rich people had.

What an interesting addendum to the story of the Flatiron, a reminder that stories beget more stories.

Back in New York

I miss Chicago! We don't sufficiently appreciate this city. (New York, I'm talkin' to you.) When I walked around the Loop the other day, admiring those early skycrapers built by Daniel Burnham and, yes, George Fuller--pictured here is the Reliance Building, now the Burnham Hotel--I felt so strongly Chicago's connection to the Flatiron Building.


This is what I told my audience at the Chicago Architecture Foundation the other day when I gave my book talk. I thanked them for the Flatiron Building, Chicago's gift to New York.

After my talk, a man asked me if anybody was building a mosque at the Flatiron Building. Quite a question, no?

More Chicago

Here's the vestibule of the Auditorium, where I saw a performance of the Joffrey Ballet tonight. This wonderful concert hall was designed by Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler during the late 1880s.

Chicago, continued

And how's this for a modern take for a flatiron-shaped lot? This is Kohn Pedersen Fox's 333 West Wacker Drive, as seen from a boat on the Chicago River. Dig that curved mirror facade.

Chicago

I'm in Chicago, where I gave a book talk yesterday at the Chicago Architecture Foundation--"The Flatiron, Chicago's gift to New York."

Are you listening, New York? If it weren't for Chicago we wouldn't have the Flatiron. The steel-frame skyscraper was invented in Chicago during the 1880s, where the men who built the Flatiron--the financier Harry Black, the architect Daniel Burnham, and the engineer George Fuller--learned everything they knew. (New Yorkers, for the record, called Chicago "a purposeless Hell.")

The Flatiron design has some specific Chicago elements, for example the curved corners. Today I walked around the Loop and noticed so many curvy-cornered buildings, like this one here. Doesn't it remind you of...the Flatiron? It's the Conway Building (now called the Burnham Center), built in 1915, and designed by Frederick Dinkelberg, the same architect from Burnham's firm who'd done the Flatiron fifteen years earlier. Guess he liked how his New York creation turned out.

After the Flatiron Man...what?

The statues of naked men by British sculptor Antony Gormley that are perched about Madison Square will depart on August 15. (Can't you just see them that day jumping off the various buildings, one by one, to line up behind Flatiron Man, and then boarding a bus which whisks them directly to JFK, where they will fly Virgin Atlantic back to London?) I'd gotten into the habit of looking for those guys every time I went down to the Flatiron during these past few months. Knowing they'll be soon gone, I already miss them. So I was happy to read in today's Times that another exhibit is in the works, courtesy of the Madison Square Park Conservancy. Click on the link below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/arts/design/30vogel.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=madison%20square&st=cse

The hottest July on record and so forth

This summer's torrid heat reminds me of July 1901, just before construction on the Flatiron Building began. It was so hot then that hundreds of people died. Horses, too; their carcasses lay about the streets. In Madison Park, people fought over the lovely wicker chairs-for-hire that an enterprising man who had recently arrived from England to seek his fortune had contracted with the city to place all over the parks, and in the choicest locations. Seemed like a great idea for New York, where everything was for sale, and anybody could get rich. In 1901, the economy was booming.



But the chair idea didn't fly. Because New Yorkers didn't like the idea of paying for sitting. Ha! Read more about this in my book.



In 1901, New York's economy was furiously expanding: skyscrapers were rising, subway tunnels were being dug out, and banks were getting stuffed with robber barons' money. New York is still arguably the world center of capital. But now so little gets manufactured here. Whereas in 1901 local factories were producing all manner of things that today are made overseas: construction supplies such as bricks, terra cotta, cast iron; office supplies--pens, pencils, typewriters, desks, chairs, glue; and everything having to do with the clothing trades, including thread, fabric, buttons, and the processing of ostrich feathers shipped from South Africa. Think of it, in all those old industrial lofts in the Flatiron District that are now upscale office space. In 1901, workers were toiling away there, producing tangible goods.

For an economy to thrive, it must produce something of value that others need to buy in order not just to live, but keep their own businesses running, and so forth and so forth. Obviously buying and selling just to get rich, i.e. trading in derivatives, doesn't cut it.

So how does the Flatiron District in 2010 compare to what it was 109 years ago? Yes, it is now glamorous, filled with the young partying set and establishments that cater to them. But we are in the midst of a recession, and there are plenty of vacancies. As for the skyline-altering One Madison Park, rising fifty glass-enclosed stories high, it is in foreclosure.

...and another mention

http://birnbaum.themorningnews.org/subject/alicesparbergalexiou/

The Flatiron Building as Metaphor and So Forth | The New York Observer

The Flatiron Building as Metaphor and So Forth The New York Observer

...and another review

This one by Jonathan Yardley, Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic of the Washington Post:

http://http//www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/25/AR2010062502268.html

More reviews coming in....

Five Books I’d Read

Book Review: The Flatiron - WSJ.com

Book Review: The Flatiron - WSJ.com

Architectural historian Francis Morrone reviews my book tomorrow (June 12) in the Wall Street Journal.

My book's out!

Yesterday, June 8, my book The Flatiron hit the stands. It's all about the construction of the building in 1902, and how New York went mad over it. I talked about this a bit last night at Barnes & Noble (the one at Broadway and 82nd Street), which hosted a book signing to mark The Flatiron's debut. For the last three years, as I wrote and researched this book, I'd been asking myself why we love this building so much. And I still don't know the answer. Is it its weird shape? Its location, smack in the middle of an intersection? That you can view it from any of its sides? That it appears different from every different angle? I think we love the Flatiron even more today than people did when it was first built.

Ever wonder about all those people who line up at Danny Meyer's Shake Shack and wait an hour or more for a hamburger? You got me. Full disclosure: I've never tried a Shake Shack burger. I refuse to wait for an hour. But no hamburger could be that good. I attribute the hyperbolic success of this glorified food stand to Meyer's fabulous marketing machine. Oh, and did I mention location? Anything tastes better when you're eating it sitting in a beautiful park, gazing up at the Flatiron Building.

Here's the beautiful MetLife tower, at the northeast edge of Madison Square Park. The tower was modeled after the Venetian Campanile. I took this photo today from the 40th floor of a neighboring building, looking north. Notice how clear the view is to midtown, up to that cluster of skyscrapers.

Today I took this picture of 26 West 17th Street, one of the many gorgeous Beaux-arts decorated loft buildings that line the Flatiron District side streets. Here my grandfather had a celluloid button factory in the late 1930s and early '40s. In those days, the area was all light industry, and pretty grungy. Nobody then cared about all these old buildings--most were built between 1900 and 1910--that preservationists today salivate over. At that time, there was no landmarks commission. Owners could tear down properties on a whim. Nobody could stop them. Tell this to the stylish young'uns rushing through the streets after work, heading to the scene at the Ace Hotel bar. They'll look at you like you're crazy. But it's true, in those days New York didn't care about the old, period. New York was all about the new. Especially for people like my grandfather, one of the millions of immigrants who came to America in the early 20th century.

He set up his business in the '30s in this then-crummy old space, which he rented for next to nothing. His business was on the top floor, where the ventilation was better, because button-manufacturing involved toxic chemicals.

Flatiron Man

Here's one of the thirty-one life-size statues by British sculptor Antony Gormley that have recently been placed around Madison Square. The figures are based on the artist's own--talk about ego!--and they are all facing the Square. You have to look way up to see most of them, because they've been placed high, high up, perched on window ledges or standing on rooftops. But a few stand on solid ground, where pedestrians daily stop and look and comment, and take photos of themselves standing next to the figures.

This one stands right in front of the Flatiron Building, looking straight at it. I call him Flatiron Man.

So with this installation what is Gormley saying about himself? About New York? About the Flatiron Building? His statues will remain until mid-August, and I will miss them when they are gone.