October 1, 1902: The Flatiron Building Opens

October 1, 1902: The Fuller Building opens in Manhattan, at the intersection of 23rd Street, 5th Avenue and Broadway, across from Madison Square. Because of its triangular shape, it becomes known as the Flatiron Building. It was meant as the headquarters of the Fuller Company, a construction firm. They sold the building in 1925.

The address is 175 Fifth Avenue. It is 285 feet tall, with 22 stories. Contrary to what some people have believed, it was never the tallest building in the world: At the time, that was City Hall in Philadelphia, 548 feet high. It wasn't even the tallest building in New York City: Three buildings in the City were then taller, topped by 309-foot World Building, named for the New York World newspaper. That building was demolished in 1955.

Designed by skyscraper pioneers Daniel Burnham and Frederick P. Dinkelberg, locals placed bets on how far the debris would spread when the wind knocked the building down. Newspapers of the time also claimed that "every window in the building" would break in high winds, Pedestrians were initially reluctant to walk on the same side of the street as the Flatiron Building because of concerns over the wind gusts. The building became known as Burnham's Folly.

The concerns were unfounded: The American Architect and Building News observed that only a few windows broke during one such instance of high winds. Nevertheless, wind from the north would split around the building, downdrafts from above and updrafts from the vaulted area under the street would combine to make the wind unpredictable.

Films preserved by the Library of Congress confirm that the building's shape did contribute to high winds around the intersection. These winds raised women's skirts, and scattered paper bills from pedestrians' pocketbooks. According to some accounts, this gave rise to the phrase "23 skidoo":

Policemen would shout this phrase at men who tried to get glimpses of women's dresses being blown up by the winds swirling around the building due to the strong downdrafts.

However, the origin of the phrase "23 skidoo" itself is disputed: Even before the building was constructed, the number "twenty-three" and the word "skidoo" were independently used as expressions of dismissal.

The building was featured in the 1958 film Bell, Book and Candle; the 1981 film Reds, in a scene set in 1915; and stood in for the headquarters of the fictional Daily Bugle newspaper in the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies in 2002, 2004 and 2007.

By the time of the building's 100th Anniversary, the neighborhood around it had become known as the Flatiron District. This was a creation of real estate agents, always looking for an easy "hook." The neighborhood just to the north, across 23rd Street, previously considered to be the eastern part of the Chelsea neighborhood, became known as "NoMad": North of Madison Square.

The building closed in 2019 for a renovation. As of October 1, 2022, that renovation had not yet been completed.

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October 1, 1902 was a Wednesday. Baseball season was over, and there was, as yet, no World Series. It was too soon for hockey, and basketball barely existed. But, despite being in midweek, there were several college football games played. Among them:

* Harvard beat Bowdoin, 17-6 at Soldiers' Field in Boston.

* Brown and Vermont played to a 0-0 at Andrews Field in Providence, Rhode Island.

* Yale beat Tufts, 34-6 at Yale Field in New Haven, Connecticut.

* Princeton beat Lehigh, 23-0 at University Field in Princeton, New Jersey.

* The University of Pennsylvania beat Franklin & Marshall, 16-0 at the original Franklin Field in Philadelphia. (It was replaced with the current stadium of that name in 1922.)