Reviews for The Flatiron: The New York Landmark and the Incomparable City That Arose with It

The average rating for The Flatiron: The New York Landmark and the Incomparable City That Arose with It based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-01-19 00:00:00 Mary Cruz I have a poster of the Edward Steichen print that is on the cover of this book. I think it is such a cool picture. I love the way it combines the element of the past, the horse drawn carriage, and the future,the Flatiron building. Plus the blue tinted mist and the stark denuded branch. Anyway, I have always been curious about the building and I am interested in architecture, so I thought I would read this book. Alexiou's book is a good one because it really provides lots of information about the growth and development of New York in the late 1800's and early 1900's. This is the beginning of the skyscraper era. Plus, she has a personal interest in this because her family at one time owned a piece of the Flatiron. Harry Black, the son in law, of George Fuller is the focus of the book. He was a ambitious young man who married into a very successful construction business. His father in law, George Fuller died very young from ALS. Black who does not even to my amazemnet have a Wikipedia entry transformed his father in law's Fuller Company into a giant real estate/construction concern. This group was responsible for many of the famous buildings in New York. He became vastly wealthy. I guess a good example of how all glory is fleeting. In addition, to learning about the New York buildings, construction, unions, and culture, you learn alot about Black's personal life. Pretty gossipy. The Flatiron was designed by an architect Norman Dinkledge who worked for the famous Chicago firm of Burnaham and Company. Daniel Burnham was the man mainly responsible for the Great White City of the Chicago Exposition. Croyden Purdy was the engineer. This building was one of the first to use steel. At the time, a lot of engineers and architects were skeptial about the lasting power of steel, but it was one of the factors that made high rises possible. Both Dinkledge and Purdy were part of the design of many, many important buildings; however, due to the stockmarket crash in the 1930's both men died basically broke. The book also talks about the changing neighborhood around the Flatiron. At the time the Flatiron was built many of the big department stores in the area had begun moving west. But since real estate is such a valuable commodity in tiny Manhatten the neighborhood comes back in fashion years later. A very enjoyable read.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-06-23 00:00:00 Matthew Sutton I used to work in the Flatiron Building. On the 17th floor (so count three down from the top), on the Broadway side, which in this picture is on your left, about three windows back from the point. See, that's my old desk! Naturally, this book was published by my old publisher, which is housed in the Flatiron. The trend towards skyscrapers began in Chicago after the Great Fire. It eventually moved to New York after some building codes were updated. It never moved to Europe. Because so many businesses could be in such a small area, back in this day before phones when most business was done in person, a journalist noted that in the course of a day you could make three appointments in one day in London, about eight in New York, and fifteen in Chicago. It was so much more efficient in terms of doing work, as well as getting a lot more rent out of a property for its owners. And this weird little triangle of New York was destined to be a skyscraper, as that was the only use of it that made any sense given the property value. This book did excel in random facts, particularly in the beginning, but for the first time, I stopped enjoying them. After a while, they started to feel like filler, as the author attempted to turn what really should have been a very long magazine article into a full-length book. Ancillary characters were turned into major ones. Minor incidents were made major. Building trends in Europe were discussed. Building trends for decades prior were also analyzed. While I did enjoy the main story quite a bit, it was pretty thin, and all the filler around it wasn't sufficient to make it into a great history. Mr. Fuller was interesting, as was his son-in-law Harry Black who completed the building and made Fuller's company into a building colossus It was well-written and not dry or boring, but it ranged far and wide and if you're looking for a book with more focus, this isn't it. I was also personally disappointed that the author rocketed through the last fifty years of the building's history in a few pages. It was interesting that one reason it is still around today is because it was the subject of a lawsuit and because the convoluted contract said that all three owners had to agree to do anything (not just majority rules). It is an interesting book for an architecture buff or serious NYC historian, but for an average reader, an article would have been better.