Madison Square Park view of Flatiron
— — the building the city built to fit a corner.
Not only on a wall.
“The Flatiron sits at the foot of Madison Square Park where Broadway cuts diagonally across Fifth Avenue. Daniel Burnham finished it in 1902. Twenty-two stories, a steel cage faced in limestone and terra cotta, narrowed at the apex to about six feet wide. From the park's southern lawn the building rises straight out of the sidewalk with nothing in the way.
Madison Square Park view of Flatiron, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Madison Square Park covers 6.2 acres between East 23rd and East 26th Streets, bounded by Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, and Broadway. It opened to the public in 1847 as one of the city's first planned squares. The Flatiron Building stands one block south at 175 Fifth Avenue, on the triangular block bounded by Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and East 22nd. The park sits at the northern end of the Flatiron District and at the southern edge of NoMad. Both are now Manhattan landmarked historic districts.
The Flatiron Building, originally the Fuller Building, was designed by Daniel Burnham of Chicago and completed in 1902. The steel frame was an early example of the skyscraper structural system; the cladding is limestone at the base and terra cotta above, in a French Renaissance program by Frederick P. Dinkelberg. Twenty-two floors rise to 285 feet. The acute corner of the triangular lot tapers to roughly six feet at its narrowest. The building was individually designated a New York City landmark in 1966 and a National Historic Landmark in 1989.
The classic view is from the southern end of Madison Square Park looking south, ideally from the path behind the Farragut Monument. The park is open daily from 6 AM to 11 PM; entry is free. Mad. Sq. Eats, a seasonal food market on the southwest edge, runs in spring and autumn. The 23rd Street station on the N, R, W, F, and M lines is one block south. Late afternoon light catches the limestone base; the terra cotta upper floors warm at sunset, with the apex catching the last of the western sun.