The Shocking Story of New York’s Strangest Tower

this is New York's flat iron building despite standing just 22 stories tall on an island full of massive skyscrapers it's managed to endure as a cake slice shaped icon of this city since 1902. it's not just a building it's an oddity it has endured as the funny duck of New York that unusual triangular shape has captured the eyes of photographers tourists and movie and TV directors for decades Spider-Man Green Goblin relax relax but in recent years this world famous structure has sat empty and under scaffolding only for a New York Court then order it to be put up for grabs at auction in early 2023 an auction that seems to have turned into a bit of a farce I never thought that that someone would bid so much for the building it's the latest uncertain chapter in the long story of this building a building that's seen so much of New York's history unfold and it's endured so much already [Music] this is the story of how one of the city's strangest Towers came to be of how it went on to become so iconic and while the current struggles around its sale are probably only going to make it more famous [Music] Manhattan's grid Street layouts is hard to miss but cutting its own path through much of it is Broadway and where that crosses Fifth Avenue a rather awkward pod of land gets created now this city is famous for its ambition and small awkward plots of lands haven't stopped it yet not even way back in 1901 purchasing the site in the May of that year the Fuller company appointed Chicago's Daniel Burnham to design a new headquarters for the firm that maximized every inch of the available land he came back with an eye-catching and ornately detailed 22-story slice of Steel and stonework then known as the Fuller building with the design approved and a number of shorter residential and Commercial structures demolished construction on the new tower started racing ahead at times adding a new floor every week with an unusual Footprints hardly any sight working space and busy New York streets on either side of them construction teams had to be clever and following a recent change in the city's fire codes this became one of the earliest buildings in New York to shun load-bearing masonry and instead take advantage of Steel for its structural frame more than 3 500 tons of it was prefabricated off-site in Pennsylvania then dropped into place almost immediately when it arrived minimizing the need for storage closely following the steel skywards was the building's then revolutionary curtainable cladding system ornate terracotta and Limestone stonework that was used to Simply infill and clad around the structural steel that actually carries the building's weight I love this one burger and life is exhausting and after a long day of looking at skyscrapers all I want to do is get back to my hotel room and watch my favorite British shows not whatever's on the hotel TV and that is where today's video sponsor surf shark comes in it's a VPN that protects your personal data from big companies and sniper criminals it does that by swapping the real location of your device with a new one that means I can virtually travel to nearly any country around the globe from my New York hotel room like right back to the UK for my own Comfort shows and even on this hotel Wi-Fi surfshark keeps your online identity safe from hackers by encrypting your data if you sign up now the b1m's viewers can get three extra months for free just use the code b1m surfshark offers a 30-day money-back guarantee so there's no risk to try it out you can sign up now at the link in the description now let's get back to that triangular wedge of engineering brilliance as the frame Rose onlookers often stops to watch the spectacle unlike many high-rise buildings that taper or step back as they rise the flat iron mimics a Greek column its top and bottom are slightly wider than its middle section that sharp top corner of the building is a mere two meters wide with an incredible angle of just 25 degrees it's all based on Bozart design which came from Paris Alice sparberg Alexa knows a thing or two about the flat iron building in fact she wrote a whole book on it because all these Chicago Architects like Burnham like Louis Sullivan they all went to bozar you know and they studied this bozar design which incorporates all these Renaissance and classical elements into a modern quote modern structure the skyscraper and took it to America and then adapted it to American cities with such sharp angles and large open streets running down to its Engineers painstakingly considered the building's aerodynamics the steel frame was built to withstand up to four times the expected wind loads acting on it still gusts from the north would split around the size of the building creating a windy experience for people on the streets the Flatiron Building shaped like a triangle perhaps unsurprisingly the interior layout created some design quirks too office space was tight and sometimes a challenge to furnish the elevators were powered by water pressure and infamously slow occasionally spring leaks and causing flooding still it was better than the alternative a single 22-story stair climb for those wanting to reach the top floor when it completed in 1902 there weren't exactly jubilant celebrations in fact the unusual structure was met with consternation and became dubbed Burnham's folly despite being sold at auction for a mere 100 000 during the Great Depression the 121 years since the building's completion have largely proven the naysayers wrong the tower is now an iconic symbol of New York drawing tourists from all over the world and though the original site that the Fuller company purchased Back In 1902 had been Loosely called the flat iron for a Time the term flat iron building has now formally stuck and even given its name to this District of Manhattan over the years it's been home to a variety of companies and Retail tenants back in 1966 it was designated as an official City Landmark a special status that means any Renovations construction or demolition Works must be approved in advance by a government commission thankfully you'll find structures like Grand Central Terminal and the Empire State on the same list then in 1989 the flat iron was further elevated to National Historic Landmark status but if these classifications are meant to preserve a sense of reverence for this structure then you wouldn't exactly know it today the flat iron has sat empty since 2019 when its last tenants mobile and Publishers moved out and that's when renovation Works began those Works which have partly taken place through the pandemic have triggered multiple disagreements among the building's current owners and future tenants things got so bad that the New York state supreme court ordered an auction on the building in 2023 the first of its kind in nearly a hundred years these other owners who comprise 75 percent of the building they are Jeff garal who's a big real estate person in New York the search ante Group which is based in Rome and a few other people have 75 percent of the property and Nathan Silverstein has 25 so their intention was to buy it back at auction and that was how they were going to get rid of Nathan the auction was held outside on the steps of this Courthouse with bids starting at 50 million dollars over the course for about 40 minutes things quickly escalated into the unexpected and unknown buy called Jacob garlic beat out Jeff Gurl the building's current majority interest holder with a bid of 190 million dollars now given the building's value had reportedly decreased after the pandemic and was in need of more than 100 million dollars of Renovations this was something of a surprising twist but it's not where the story ends in yet another bizarre turn garlic disappeared he failed to make the 19 million down payment within the required time period and has yet to reply to multiple messages from the media foreign you're probably wondering how something like this is even possible surely you can't just rock up to an auction outbid everybody and vanish well according to court filings that we've seen bidders weren't required to pay a deposit of any sort to participate in the auction it wasn't until after the event that a winner needed to provide proof of any funds that's something that real estate experts say is highly unusual practice and it seems to have led to well just about anyone joining in Alice who actually attended the auction said she's had speculations about garlic and his relation to one of the building's former owners Nathan Silverstein yeah there's something you know weird going on either I mean some people suspect that Nathan put him up to it so that they would keep upping the price and then Nathan would work away with more money because he had lost the building for now who Jacob garlic is and what exactly he was doing remain unknown and with no definitive owner the future of this landmark building hangs in the balance 121 years is a long time in New York and this building has seen it all from the initial opposition to its existence through the Great Depression of world war the immense changes at the second half of the 20th century brought and now a reimagining of how we use our cities a headline grabbing auction battle is the latest compelling twist in The Amazing history of this structure far from being its downfall it's likely to help make it feel even more legendary this video was made possible by surf shark you can learn more about that at the link below there's also the chance to dive deeper on the flat iron building and other topics on our Channel over on the world's best construction podcast available right now wherever you get your podcasts and as always guys if you enjoyed this video and you want to get more from the definitive video channel for construction from the channel that takes you into the hearts of New York City smash that subscribe button [Music]

Channel: The B1M

Views: 5,332,542

Keywords: B1M, TheB1M, Construction, architecture, engineering, The B1M, Fred Mills, building, new york, new york city, flatiron building, new york icons, new york building, nyc, Beaux Arts design, Jacob Garlick, Nathan silverstein, Jeff Gural, steel frame, city landmark, Empire State Building, grand central terminal, Daniel Burnham, fuller company, skyscraper, new york skyline

Id: OPUlqYN4Z-k

Length: 11min 59sec (719 seconds)

Published: Wed May 03 2023