Flatiron Building

Rising 285 feet, the Flatiron Building was shorter than several contemporary skyscrapers, but it remains a New York favorite due to its dramatic triangular "flat-iron" shape that narrows to just 6 feet at Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd St. The official name, the Fuller Building, referred to Fuller Construction Co., the major skyscraper builders who erected, owned, and had headquarters in the speculative office building.^[1]

The Flatiron Building was built by the Chicago-based Fuller Company—a group founded by George Fuller, “the father of the skyscraper”—to be their New York headquarters. The company`s president, Harry Black, was never able to make the public call the Flatiron the Fuller Building, however. Black`s was the country`s largest real estate firm, constructing Macy`s department store, and soon after the Plaza Hotel, the Savoy Hotel, and many other iconic buildings in New York as well as in other cities across the country. With an ostentatious lifestyle that drew constant media scrutiny, Black made a fortune only to meet a tragic, untimely end.