Bouquets of spring "flowers" are blossoming on lampposts throughout the Flatiron district.

The flowers are actually interpretations of the Flatiron Partnership's distinctive "intersection" logo and are part of the BID's new seasonal banners that went up on lampposts in time to usher in the first day of spring. Scheduled to remain on view through the summer, they replace the winter banners on which the Partnership's logo was depicted as snowflakes falling from a night sky.

This is the third version of BID banners since the Partnership was launched. Like the others, they were created by Pentagram, the internationally celebrated design firm with U.S. headquarters in the heart of the district, and, like the others, they are sponsored by local businesses and property owners whose logos are prominently featured. There are currently 55 new banners, but more will be added as new sponsors sign on.

The banners are regarded as an important way to increase awareness of the BID among businesses, residents and visitors to the neighborhood, as well as highlighting the property owners and companies that are vested in the area.

For more information about sponsorships, please click here.

The free Sunday-morning walking tour program, sponsored by the Flatiron Partnership, is about to reach its first anniversary.

At 11 a.m. on April 29, 2007, the first of the weekly, 90-minute trips through time stepped off from the corner of 23rd Street and Broadway for a guided tour of this historic neighborhood, and the journey has been repeated, without interruption, every Sunday at the same time since then.

A rotating trio of guides has enlightened and entertained more than 700 people to date. Visitors have come from more than 25 nations and over 110 cities in the United States and Canada.

In addition to outlining the background and history of the district's landmark architectural attractions (the Flatiron building, the MetLife tower, New York Life, the Appellate Courthouse), the tours reveal inside information about everything from Stanford White's infamous love nest to the story of America's first community Christmas tree.

Each of the Flatiron guides is an expert about the city. Miriam Berman is the author of "Madison Square: The Park and Its Celebrated Landmarks"; Frederick Cookinham has led tours for the New-York Historical Society and other notable institutions; and Mike Kaback, a native New Yorker, has guided visitors throughout the city for the past eight years.

The only bait needed by Urban Angler to lure customers into its shop is its reputation.

Perched on the third floor of 206 Fifth Avenue, just across from Madison Square Park, Urban Angler - a specialty store with one of the widest selections of fly-fishing equipment in the country - has thrived without a street-level location since it was launched in 1988. The only clue to its whereabouts is a banner hanging from the building façade. Prior to moving to Fifth Avenue almost six years ago, Urban Angler was in an upstairs location on East 25th Street, near the Armory.

"For a business like ours, foot traffic is a remarkably small percentage of our volume. Word of mouth is what does it," says owner Jonathan Fisher. And yes, Fisher is his real name, not his reel name.

"We are a niche business: fly fishing and a limited selection of high-end spinning tackle. We also book travel for fly fishing trips all over the world, mainly through our website. That's a niche within a niche," he adds. "Fly fishermen tend to be very devout. They will search out resources they've heard about. Consequently, people come here from all parts of the country, as well as from Europe and South America."

The store stocks a remarkable selection of gear: rods, reels, flies and the components with which to make them, waders, "technical clothing" for extremes of weather, shirts, pants, sweaters, jackets and gift items, from specialized belt buckles with a fishing theme to art work. Some 150 demonstration rods are on display, with more in stock. They range in price from $150 to $800. All of Urban Angler's rods are graphite, except for a few bamboo rods that go for "upwards of $3,000," says Fisher, likening them to works of art.

This month, Urban Angler is expanding to a second location, in Arlington, Va.

When Captain Timothy Beaudette was named commanding officer of the 13th Precinct last fall, he knew that his new assignment and his previous one would be as different as, well . . . night and day.

"This is a 24-hour operation," he said, sitting in his light-filled office at the precinct's "house" at 230 East 21st Street. "You have the nightlife and it's a big shopping district. There's always something happening. My last post was as commanding officer of the Central Park Precinct. Central Park basically closes at 1:00AM. There's very little action up there after that."

More than 150 police officers are attached to the One Three, which stretches from Seventh Avenue to the East River and from 14th Street to 30th Street. It includes the entire Flatiron BID, as well as other neighborhoods such as Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper and parts of Chelsea. The precinct's CompStat crime statistics, which are updated weekly, can be accessed here or by clicking on the NYPD badge on the right side of this newsletter.

Reed-slender, dressed in a dark pinstriped suit, easygoing and unfailingly courteous ("call me Tim"), the 40-year-old Beaudette looks like he could be a bank manager or an attorney - except for the firearm anchored to his belt. He was raised in the Long Island town of Manhasset, attended St. Mary's High School and is a graduate of St. John's University, where he majored in business and thought about becoming a cop. Like many in the NYPD, he has relatives "on the job," including cousins who are police officers and a brother who is a corrections officer at Rikers Island.

Beaudette entered the Police Academy in 1993 and became a police officer the following year, starting in the very busy Midtown South Precinct and working his way around the boroughs and up through the ranks. He became a captain in 2003.

A family man, Beaudette continues to live on Long Island. His wife, Rebecca, a former guidance counselor for a middle school in Nyack, N.Y., now devotes her time to raising the couple's three children: Michelle, 6; Ryan, 4; and Jack, 2. A photograph of the whole family, in bright red sweaters, is prominent on the captain's desk. It's one of the first things he shows to a visitor.

When a small business in a financially disenfranchised neighborhood finds it difficult, if not impossible, to get a loan from traditional sources, its prospects for success might be non-existent. That's where Acción New York comes in.

The award-winning organization, founded in 1991 and headquartered at 115 East 23rd Street, is a non-profit company that offers loans and financial advisory services to individuals and small businesses that might lack the requisite credentials to obtain financing from commercial banks. By providing microloans as well as financial literacy programs - all clients are offered free one-on-one business and financial training - it can not only allow entrepreneurs, many of whom are women and minorities, to succeed in business, but it can help revitalize economically underserved neighborhoods. In 2004, it launched Acción New Jersey as a division.

Acción New York is an affiliate of Acción International, a pioneer in microfinancing that was established in 1961 and now has branches in 25 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and in the United States.

Since its inception, Acción New York has become the city's largest microlender. It has issued more than 11,000 loans totaling $77.3 million, according to spokeswoman Laura Kozien. The loans range in size from $500 to $50,000. Until the recent economic downturn, repayment rates were close to 95 percent. Now, said Kozien, they are around 90 percent.

It stood just north of where the Flatiron Building is now, a formidable-looking structure of stone and brick that was built in the early years of the 19th century to house and train soldiers during the War of 1812. Within a short time, however, it would make history as the House of Refuge - this country's first reformatory for juvenile delinquents and the model for others in large cities.

The House of Refuge was the brainchild of a newly formed civic organization called the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism and Crime, which felt that incarcerating youngsters with "older and more hardened criminals" did nothing to improve their prospects of rehabilitation. The children deserved their own quarters, and the armory, no longer needed for war, became the New-York House of Refuge. On Jan. 1, 1825, the new reformatory welcomed its first inmates, six boys and three girls. As the delinquent population grew, separate wings for boys and girls were added and the original rectangular building became U-shaped. In 1839, a fire destroyed almost all of it and the House of Refuge was relocated to 23rd Street and the East River. In 1852 it was moved once again, this time to Randall's Island, with plans to house up to 1,300 juvenile offenders.

In a 3,400-word article published on Jan. 23, 1860, The New York Times extolled the virtues of the House of Refuge, citing its commitment to education, its vocational opportunities, even its cuisine, and describing its administrators as "having been, from the first, among our most judicious and philanthropic citizens." Other Houses of Refuge sprang up in Boston, Philadelphia and elsewhere.

But the true picture wasn't as cheerful as all that. It wasn't long before investigations uncovered an enormous amount of abuse inside the walls of the reformatories: excessive corporal punishment, exploitation of the inmates as sources of cheap labor for outside contractors, virtually no classroom education or vocational instruction to prepare the children for a better life. The Houses of Refuge eventually disappeared, relics of a bygone time, their passing mourned by few.

The Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Sava - a remarkable mid-block complex of neo-Gothic brownstone buildings in the Flatiron district - can trace its beginnings to the original parishioners of Trinity Church, down on Broadway and Wall Street.

By the time Trinity Church was consecrated on May 1, 1846, it had already begun losing parishioners who were moving uptown. To retain the flock, it decided to erect chapels in the newly fashionable parts of town. Architect Richard Upjohn, who designed Trinity Church, built another in the mid-block that runs from West 25th to West 26 Streets west of Broadway. It was called Trinity Chapel and it opened in 1855 as an Episcopal church.

Eleven years later, Trinity's clergy house, which is attached to the rear of the church, was added at 16 West 26th Street; in 1870, Trinity Chapel School - architect Jacob Mould's last remaining building in New York City - welcomed its first students at 13 West 25th Street, just east of the church. Together, the buildings composed what The New York Times has called "a little ecclesiastical village that still surprises newcomers to the area."

The church exterior was rugged looking stone, with no tower and virtually no ornamentation. The interior, however, was breathtaking. Its single-aisled nave stretched for almost 180 feet and its open ceiling of Norway pine peaked nearly eight stories above the cathedral floor. The walls were faced with Caen limestone from France, giving it a feeling of light. In its day, Trinity Chapel enjoyed great social cachet, especially after novelist and tastemaker Edith Wharton was married there in 1885.

As time passed and the neighborhood around the church became more commercial, Trinity lost parishioners, became run down and was almost abandoned. Not long after the start of World War II, it was put on the market and in 1943, it was acquired by members of the Serbian Orthodox Church. On June 11, 1944, it was consecrated as the Cathedral of Saint Sava, the first Serbian Orthodox church on the East Coast.

The exterior was designated a New York City Landmark in 1968, and in 1982, Saint Sava was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

A major restoration of the exterior, including the roof, was completed in 2006 after four years and a cost of some $3 million. Now Saint Sava wants to raise another $5 million to restore the interior, which needs an updated electrical system, repairs to walls and paintings damaged by leaks and the restoration of stained glass windows. There are also plans to restore Jacob Mould's former church school, now Saint Sava's parish house.

Recent News Coverage

• Group Confronts Abusers of Area Methadone Clinics
• Brrrsk Winter Walks Through Neighborhood
• BID Launches Homeless Outreach Program
• Making Downtown Friendlier
• Buyers Go Mad.
• Methadone Clients Will Be Told to Dose and Dash
• Methadone Clinics to Keep Closer Watch on Patients
• Drug Clinics to Dismiss Clients Who Get Busted
• Flatiron BID Launches Tree Planting Program
• BID Holds First Annual Meeting
• BID Launches Neighborhood Safety Program
• Annual Meeting Scheduled
• BID Giving Free Walking Tours Through Flatiron District
• BID to Hold Concert to Benefit Homeless
• Local Businesses Head to BID Forums
• BID Unveils New Litter Receptacles
• Clean Team Takes on Snow Removal
• BID Welcomes Citibank to Neighborhood
• BID Makes a Clean Sweep
• Officer Who Cleaned Up Kenmore Named BID's Operations Director
• Long Live the BID
• Jennifer Brown Appointed Executive Director of Flatiron BID
• Manhattan's First New BID in Over Four Years Launched
• New Improvement District Around Madison Square Park
• BID Aims to Clean Up Community
• Flatiron BID Uses Hi-Tech to Track Problem Areas
• Flatiron BID Plans Neighborhood Makeover
• New BID Is Milestone in Flatiron District Revitalization

Press Releases

• Homeless Outreach Program Launched
• BID Conducts First Annual Meeting
• Flatiron BID Launches Public Safety Program
• Discover Flatiron: Free Walking Tours
• Hero Officer Returns to His Beat
• BID Launches Sanitation Program
• Jennifer Brown Appointed Executive Director
• Flatiron Partnership BID Launched

Newsletters

• March 2008
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• January 2008
• December 2007
• November 2007
• October 2007
• September 2007
• August 2007
• July 2007
• June 2007
• May 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007
• January 2007
• December 2006

Announcements

• Restaurant Week Winter 2008
• Tree Lighting 2007
• Flatiron Holiday 2007
• Flatiron Eats - Fall 2007
• Flatiron Eats - Summer 2007