The 1929 Art Deco Fuller Building -- Madison Avenue and 57th Street

photograph by Jim Henderson.

Although by the late 1920s Fifth Avenue below Central Park was nearly completely commercial, East 57^th Street, stretching eastward, still clung on as a respected residential neighborhood.  At the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 57^th Street stood the 1870 Central Presbyterian Church (originally built as the Madison Avenue Dutch Reformed Church).  The 60-year old church was about to come down and in its place would be an Art Deco tour de force and the beginning of the end for residential 57^th Street.

The Central Presbyterian Church stands at the corner of 57th Street and Madison Avenue, just prior to construction of the Fuller Building -- photo NYPL Collection

At the turn of the century, the Fuller Construction Company, under the direction of Harry S. Black, was a pioneering force in the erection of skyscrapers.  The energetic Black diversified his deceased father-in-law’s contracting firm, the George A. Fuller Company, to include the construction branch and a real estate company, the United States Realty and Improvement Company.

The Fuller Company would go on to construct monumental and important structures – old Pennsylvania Station, the main Post Office on 8^th Avenue, the Plaza Hotel, the Lincoln Memorial and the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington D.C. among them – but perhaps its most ground-breaking structure was its own 1902 headquarters building.

The original Fuller Building rose on the pointy plot of ground where 23^rd Street, Fifth Avenue and Broadway intersected.   Yet, as The New York Times pointed out years later, “but ever since its erection on the triangular plot it has been more popularly known as the Flatiron Building, and the fact that Fuller was its official name has been practically forgotten.”

Only 26 years later, the Fuller Company decided to leave its headquarters to move uptown to a larger building.  One factor in the decision was simply that the 23^rd Street location was no longer the center of the business area.  In 1928 the Fuller Company purchased for $3 million the Central Presbyterian Church which The New York Times called “one of the landmarks of that area,” and commissioned Walker & Gillette to design their soaring new headquarters.

On December 2 The New York Times anticipated the new Fuller Building, the first “high-class multiple-purpose skyscraper to be erected in the city.”    The article said “It will provide salon shop space on the first six floors.  Between the sixth and fifteenth stories, there will be fourteen stages, designed and constructed as an art trade centre for dealers in art objects and interior decorators.  From the fifteenth to the fortieth floor the building has been designed for offices.”

In 1928 the Fuller Building began rising above 57th Street as refined homes still stretched eastward-- photo NYPL Collection

The architects designed the “salon shop spaces” on street level as vertical shops—the high-class stores could rise several levels rather than spreading horizontally.  The lower floors were clad in polished black Swedish granite.  Above, Rockwood limestone was ornamented with crisp black slate geometric Art Deco shapes.

The "salon spaces," seen from the Madison Avenue side, offered enormous expanses of glass.

Architect A. Stewart Walker, who was already on friendly terms with the esteemed artist Elie Nadelman, offered him the commission to do a large bas-relief sculpture over the 57^th Street entrance.  Although Nadelman, who had influenced artists like Pablo Picasso, had never done architectural sculpture, he accepted.  His completed sculpture, which doubles as the background for a clock, features two muscular workmen dressed in Roman attire and leaning on their hammers against a frieze of stylized skyscrapers.

The Fuller Company had learned its lesson with the Flatiron Building.  Below the massive sculpture in huge lettering the name FULLER BUILDING was prominently announced.

Beneath Nadelmen's story-high sculpture the building's name is prominently displayed.

Walker & Gillette managed to hint at traditional architecture with Art Deco ornamentation.   The three-story tall entrance is supported by great pilasters instead of columns.  Fluting is suggested by stripes and capitals are replaced by triangular, two-dimensional decorations.  

The 57th Street entrance rises three stories to the sculpture and clock.

Above it all, the Aztec-inspired crown could be seen for blocks.  Sunburst patterns exploded from the story-high round windows under a ziggurat laden with black-and-white geometric designs.

By September 8, 1929 the building was nearly completed as the George A. Fuller Company planned its move.   The company devoted four floors—from the 16^th through the 19^th—as its headquarters.  “Elaborate finishing work has been done in the offices selected by the Fuller executives,” reported The New York Times, “with teak wood used extensively in the interior trim.  Private elevator service is available to these offices…The Fuller firm will be the first to occupy the building, but other tenants will move in within a few weeks.”

The elaborate lobby includes mosaic depictions of Fuller-constructed buildings, like the Tacoma Building -- photo alephnaught.com

Indeed, within two months and despite the onset of the Great Depression, all space between the 7^th through the 20^th floors was leased.

The art gallery spaces—the 6^th through 15^th floors—became the major high-end gallery location for decades.   Throughout the years famed galleries such as the Pierre Matisse Gallery, the Andrew Crispo Gallery, the Zabriskie, David Findlay Jr., David McKee and Robert Miller galleries would be here.  Andre Emmerich’s gallery would highlight works by David Hockney and Al Held along with pre-Columbian art.   In the Charles Egan Gallery, whose walls were painted by Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, works by Joseph Stella, Mark Rothko, Paul Klee and Georges Braque were exhibited.

In 2002, after the Fuller Building had reigned above its neighbors for decades, it competed for attention with the 52-story I. M. Pei-designed Four Seasons Hotel.    The situation caused architectural critic Carter B. Horsley to lament “it is unfortunate for such a noble tower as the Fuller Building to have to suffer the affront of upperfloormanship from such a new upstart, even if it is a lavish one.”

A disciplined riot of setbacks serve as the base for the soaring central shaft. The competing 2002 Four Seasons Hotel is behind (to the right).

Owners of the Fuller Building, which the Landmarks Preservation Commission calls “and outstanding example of…Art Deco skyscrapers” and others call a “masterpiece,” announced plans in 2005 to convert the upper floors to luxury residential condominiums.

Many thanks to Paul Anater for requesting this post

non-credited photographs taken by the author

The 1902 Flatiron Building -- 23rd Street between Broadway and 5th Avenue

The Fuller Building shortly after completion with its "cowcatcher" retail space at the front -- photo NYPL Collection

It was not the soaring height of the Fuller Building that caught New Yorkers’ attention in 1902.  And it was not the masterful, almost sculptural, design.  It was the wind.

The pie-shaped plot of land bounded by East 22^nd Street, Broadway and Fifth Avenue – with its nose poking against 23^rd Street – held a hodge-podge of small commercial buildings prior to 1902.  But its visible location at the confluence of the major arteries coupled with its location across from Madison Square Park gave it an untapped and inestimable value.  This despite the neighborhood’s recent slide from carriage-trade emporiums to mostly loft spaces with small manufacturing.

The site was owned by Amos Eno and after his death in 1899 his son William purchased it from the estate for $690,000; a staggering sum at the turn of the century.  Within a month he sold the property to Samuel and Mort Newhouse for $801,000.  Although the Newhouses had lofty plans for the site initially, they eventually sold it to Harry S. Black two years later.

Black ran the Fuller Company, a general contracting company whose specialty was the construction of skyscrapers.  Fuller was, actually, the first actual “general contractor” – a firm that handled all phases of construction other than its architecture.

Harry S. Black envisioned an impressive new headquarters for his firm – one that would establish not only its reputation as a serious player in the building game, but which would advertise its construction capabilities.  Rather than tap the talents of local architects like McKim, Mead & White or Carrere & Hastings, Black turned to Chicago-based Daniel Burnham.

Burnham designed a 21-floor show-stopper, mixing Renaissance Revival with Beaux Arts styles.  The facade was slathered with carvings and molded terra cotta – barely a square foot could be found without ornamentation.  The building rose from a limestone base to the ornate terra cotta above; the detailing designed by Frederick P. Dinkelberg who worked in Burnham’s office.

The Fuller Building went up like a skyrocket.  The foundation was completed on March 3, 1902 and exactly four months later the roof was placed in position.  On August 1, only nine months after ground was broken, it was completed.

The Fuller Building rises with astonishing speed in 1902 -- photo NYPL Collection

Rising 300 feet, the Fuller Building was a marvel of architecture, appearing to part the avenues like a great ship.  The 23^rd Street exposure was a mere 6.5 feet wide, broadening southward to fill the 22^nd Street block between Fifth Avenue and Broadway.

The tiny point on the sidewalk level was essentially useless so Black had a retail space built out which was not on Burnham’s original plans.  The “cowcatcher” store, Black felt, would take advantage of the busy site and produce income.  Because of its triangular shape, it quickly gained the nickname the “Flatiron Building” – although other similarly-shaped buildings were also given that tag at the time.

Turn of the century laundresses were intimately familiar with the heavy metal flat irons, the shape of which lent their name to the Flatiron Building

The steel skeleton, said to be the heaviest in New York at the time at 4,000 tons, allowed the structure to attain its full 20 stories plus attic.  New Yorkers by now were accustomed to higher and higher buildings.  But they were not quite so sure about the effects that the great wedge of masonry would have on air currents.

At its completion the Municipal Journal & Public Works said “New York’s latest freak in the shape of sky scrapers has already been nicknamed the ‘Flat-Iron,’ although it is otherwise known as the Fuller Building. “  Almost immediately rumors began circulating about the building’s effects on the wind.

In 1903 the America Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record reported that “the erection of this building is said to have had a curious effect in regard to air currents and a case is at present pending in the New York courts, one man suing the owners of the building for a large sum as compensation for the blowing in of his windows, which has happened several times since the building was erected.”

The article continued “Then the street passengers are knocked about in all sorts of rude and unkindly fashions, so that it appears as if the Flat Iron Building may not be an unmixed blessing to the locality.”

On February 6, 1903 The New York Times blamed increased wind gusts the day before on the Flatiron Building, saying the storm “took up its headquarters in the Flatiron Building…Conservative guessers who drifted past the building during the afternoon estimated the velocity at 1,000 miles an hour…A $500 plate glass window, twelve by eight feet, adorned the café of the Hotel Bartholdi, directly opposite the Flatiron Building, was the first victim of the wind.”  The reporter continued, “Later in the day a recoil gust of wind smashed in one of the three windows of the extension which forms the northern corner of the Flatiron Building.”

Fourteen year old John McTaggart’s death that day was blamed on the building.  The messenger boy was attempting to round the 23^rd Street point of the building against the wind.  After attempting three times, he was reportedly blown into 5^th Avenue and fatally injured by an automobile.

Then, on September 17, 1903, The New York Times reported on another wind storm.  “When the storm was at its height, Madison Square for an area of 200 yards from the Flatiron Building was swept clear of all traffic.  Anything less heavy than a street car that came within the zone dominated by the triangular structure was blown away.”

A concerned citizen from Newport, Rhode Island, J. A. Swan wrote to the newspaper suggesting a solution:

In regard to the trouble at the Flatiron Building, which we read about every time we have a high wind, has it been suggested by anybody that it could be all remedied, without spoiling the looks of the building, by putting a balcony about four feet wide around the building just below the windows at every story, or every other story?  I have been convinced in my own mind from the first that this would prevent the wind from sweeping down after it strikes the building.

The building seemed to float up the avenues like a great ship -- NYPL Collection

Not everyone was concerned about the wind effects.  Policemen were kept busy shooing away the young men who loitered at the 23^rd Street point of the building, hoping an errant gust of wind would lift the hems of passing ladies, exposing a tantalizing glimpse of ankle.

Wind worries eventually subsided and in March of 1915 plans were filed with the Building Department to increase the height of the skyscraper.  A “draughting room” was charted as an additional story “ten feet high with several skylights.”  The estimated cost of the addition, which would bring the building to a full 22 stories, was $10,000.

Four years later the effectiveness of the water pressure in the soaring building—so thoroughly tested in 1902--would be put to the test again when a fire raged on the 21^st floor.  Firefighters were required to wrestle high-pressure hoses from the lower floors up the stairs in a five-hour battle with the flames.  

Although the structure was little damaged, the heat dislodged one of the large ornamental blocks—about four feet wide and a foot thick--from the facade.  The block fell 21 floors to Fifth Avenue, missing a policeman by a few feet.  The concussion of the masonry onto the pavement broke a plate glass window in the Stein Doblin Company at Broadway and 22^nd Street.

Throughout its existence the Flatiron Building has remained an icon of New York City.  In their Beaux Arts Architecture in New York, Edmund Vincent Gillon and Henry Hope Reed said “Of all the skyscrapers built in the first decades of this century, the Flatiron Building was the one that captured the public imagination–even more than did the Woolworth Building.”

It has been the focus of esteemed photographers like Berenice Abbott, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Steichen; the subject of paintings by Albert Gleizes, Paul Cornoyer and other American artists; appeared in the writings of O’Henry and scores of television shows and motion pictures.  Even before its completion, the Flatiron Building was one of the most recognizable and most reproduced architectural images in the United States.

Edward Steichen's haunting photograph of the Flatiron Building at night

The beloved Flatiron Building has given its name to the entire geographical area around it: The Flatiron District.  And today it still functions as an office building, housing some of the nation’s most prestigious publishing companies.