Why visit
The Flatiron Building rises at the narrow triangular junction of Broadway, Fifth Avenue and East 22nd Street beside Madison Square. Completed in 1902 by D. H. Burnham & Company, its steel frame allowed twenty-one stories to occupy a site that tapers to a rounded, prow-like northern point.
What to see
A limestone and glazed terra-cotta exterior wraps the unusual plan in stacked classical ornament, with a heavily articulated base, repetitive office floors and a projecting upper cornice. From the north, the acute angle visually compresses the building into an impossibly thin vertical plane before its full wedge appears from the side.
Plan your visit
The building helped define an early skyscraper district around Madison Square and gave the surrounding neighborhood its popular name. It remains a commercial structure rather than a public observatory, so its significance is read primarily from the plazas and streets, where geometry, ornament and changing perspective produce its famous form.
