The hotel and flight are booked! Here lies the future site of our lovely trip to New York City in the Fall of 2007. Pictured is a great shot of the Flatiron building. Interestingly enough, the Flatiron building was orignianlly named the Fuller Building, but quickly received its nickname as the Flatiron Building.


WIKIPEDIA.ORG (2007) REFERENCES THE FOLLOWING:
"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[1] (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.[2] 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.[3] 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, and a functioning office building, currently home to several book publishers, most of them under the umbrella of Holtzbrinck Publishers. It is also used as the Daily Bugle building in Spider-Man. The surrounding area of Manhattan is named the Flatiron District for its signature building.