Paul Goldfinger ©. Flatiron Building. Tri-X collection. c.1990.
By Paul Goldfinger, Photography editor @Blogfinger
Like Ocean Grove, the Flatiron Building is on the US National Register of Historic Places. It was built in 1902 and has a steel triangular frame which sits at 5th Avenue, Broadway, and East 22nd St. That part of NYC is called the “Flatiron District.”
This building has been a favorite subject of photographers. The name “Flatiron” refers to the shape of an antique metal clothes iron.
From a photographic point of view of buildings, sometimes you get strange angles, as there is with my photo above which gives the illusion of Flatiron tilting.
Professional architecture photographers use large format cameras with special equipment to get the correct perspective.
But many early photos of the Flatiron show the same off-perspective, but those photographers just accept the result and don’t comment about it.
Below is Edward Steichen’s famous 1904 night photograph of the Flatiron. He got the angles just right; probably with a large format camera where you stick your head under a black cloth.
Edward Steichen 1904
From Uptown Lowdown, a Jazz Salute to the Big Apple (live) with Warren Vaché (trumpet), Ken Peplowski (clarinet) and other famous players we have “Rose of Washington Square” and “Broadway Rose” :
