| Community Survey Results |
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Members of the community have given a strong
stamp of approval to the Flatiron
Partnership's programs, rating them as major
successes.
That is one of the key findings gleaned
from the BID's first community survey, in
which respondents were asked to comment on
various Flatiron Partnership projects
launched or contemplated during its first
year of operation. The survey was conducted
last October and November. Some 495 people
responded, ranging from commercial property
owners to business owners to residents.
Some of the highlights:
- Of the respondents familiar with the
BID's marketing campaign, which includes the
online newsletter, Web site, walking tours
and map/guide, almost 90 percent rated it
"good" or "excellent." A strong interest was
voiced in networking events and speaker
series.
- Almost 80 percent of respondents knew
about the Clean Streets program, with some 72
percent calling it "good" or "excellent."
- Of all the services provided by the BID,
street and sidewalk sweeping rated highest in
importance, followed by graffiti removal.
- Although fewer respondents knew
about the Public Safety program, which was
relatively new, the majority of those
who were familiar with it rated it "good" or
"excellent."
- Hanging planters, landscaping and
beautification rated highest among potential
neighborhood improvement projects.
Please click
here to download the complete survey results.
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| Training Funds for Small Businesses |
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Businesses looking to create new or enhance
existing employee training programs may
apply for up to $400,000 in training costs
for their workers, providing certain criteria
are met. The money is provided by NYC
Business Solutions Training Funds, part
of the city's Department of Small Business
Services, and is designed to develop skills,
advance careers and result in greater
profitability and productivity.
Pre-applications will be posted online
on March 17.
Two public information sessions are scheduled
for March 31 at 110 William Street, 7th
floor. One is from 9:30AM to 11:00AM, the other
from 1:30PM to 3:00PM. Pre-applications are due
on April 15 and final applications are due
May 15.
Funding is available not only for
occupational skills, but for training in
English, adult literacy and math. To qualify,
businesses must be in one of the following
sectors: financial services, health care,
information and professional services,
transportation, food services/accommodation,
industrial/manufacturing, retail or construction.
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| Second Stories: Pure Power Boot Camp |
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(New York is a vertical city and its
stories literally reach to the sky. The
Flatiron district is no exception. Hence, the
launch of a new series about neighborhood
businesses and activities that take place
just above ground level. We call them Second
Stories. Here's the first.)
It's predawn in the Flatiron district and
from an otherwise nondescript building comes
the sound of agony: groans and moans and
cries and whimpers. Its source is the second
floor of 38 West 21st Street, a
6,500-square-foot loft of camouflage netting,
hurdles, tires, monkey bars, ropes, ladders
and climbing walls. This is Pure Power Boot
Camp, a fitness center where the trainers, or
"drill instructors," are all former Marines.
Lauren Brenner, the 34-year-old owner, is a
former Wall Street trader
and Syracuse University tennis star who says
her passions in life are "sports,
entertainment and business." Four years ago,
she put all three together and opened Pure
Power, which might be the country's only
indoor obstacle course.
"We like to take people out of their comfort
zone," Brenner says.
Clients, or "recruits," range from the 20s to
the 60s and are grouped into classes, or
"platoons," of no more than 16. Hour-long
sessions begin at 5:30AM. Men and women have
separate changing tents and everyone wears
military-type fatigues and T-shirts. Brenner
also offers separate "team building" programs
to corporations. Pure Power has been so
successful that a second facility opened in
February in Jericho, Long Island.
"I am," says Brenner, ever the businesswoman,
"thinking franchise."
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| Yoqua Bar Bows on 23rd Street |
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Yoqua Bar, a tiny shop specializing in
a large number of items made with frozen
yogurt, has opened at 111 East 23rd Street,
between Park Avenue South and Lexington
Avenue.
Run by Esther Park and her husband,
Sang, the shop offers only plain yogurt but
dresses it up with an array of fresh fruits
and other toppings such as honey and ginger.
The yogurt is organic and non-fat. In
addition, Yoqua has smoothies, waffles,
crepes, parfaits, its own version of
tiramisu, edible flower salads with yogurt
dressing, soups made with yogurt instead of
cream, assorted teas, some from South Korea,
and various natural sodas and waters. Yoqua
is open seven days a week.
Esther Park says she loves the location
because of all the foot traffic on 23rd
Street, and the proximity to schools such as
her husband's alma mater, Baruch College. She
says she's currently scouting for additional
sites in Manhattan.
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| 24 Hour Fitness, Derek Jeter Coming to Flatiron |
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24 Hour Fitness, a health club chain
with more than 400 locations, has picked the
Flatiron district for its New York debut -
and it's partnering in the venture with New
York Yankee captain Derek Jeter. The
facility, which will be called a 24 Hour
Fitness-Derek Jeter gym, is expected to open
in late June at 225 Fifth Avenue, at East
26th Street. It will be a full-service,
28,000-square-foot facility. Jeter, an equity
partner, will participate in various
promotions.
The Yankee shortstop is the
latest in a lineup of sports and fitness
stars involved with 24 Hour Fitness,
including Andre Agassi, Lance Armstrong,
Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Yao Ming, Shaquille
O'Neal and Jackie Chan.
The chain, based in San Ramon, Calif.,
expects to open two more Jeter-branded clubs
in Manhattan this year, one in SoHo and one
in the Citicorp building at Lexington Avenue
and East 53rd Street. Jeter, now in spring
training with the Yankees in Florida, is
currently getting in shape on 24 Hour Fitness
equipment. He said the chain has outfitted
Yankee workout facilities "at spring
training, Legends Field, Yankee Stadium, and
they're doing the new Yankee Stadium, so I'm
familiar with all their equipment."
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| Flatiron Flashback: The Birth of Baseball |
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(This is the first in a series to appear
here from time to time, in which we will
examine matters of historic or cultural
import that have their roots in the Flatiron
district.)
The origins of baseball are shrouded in mist,
with some historians citing even ancient
civilizations as the true birthplace, but
this much seems clear: the modern game owes
much to a native New Yorker named Alexander
Joy Cartwright Jr. who played it within the
Flatiron district, on a field just north of
the area that became Madison Square Park, and
whose refinements shaped it into the version
we know today.
Cartwright, cited in 1953 by the U.S.
Congress as the founder of the modern game,
was born in 1820. He was a bank clerk who
became a bookseller when the bank folded. A
strapping young fellow, Cartwright was also a
volunteer fireman at the Knickerbocker Engine
Co. No. 12, at Pearl and Cherry Streets. On
late summer afternoons, he and his firehouse
buddies would gather in a park at 27th Street
and Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue South)
when the area was known as the Parade Ground,
where they would play a rude version of
baseball.
Cartwright formed a team and called it the
Knickerbockers - no relation to the
basketball team whose home is Madison Square
Garden. The Knickerbocker Base Ball Club,
the first organized team in baseball history,
played against other New York squads, but
urbanization forced Cartwright to seek new
venues. In 1845, baseball moved across the
Hudson to an old cricket grounds in Hoboken,
N.J., known as Elysian Fields. There, on
Sept. 23, Cartwright composed a list of
rules. They included foul lines; three
strikes to an out; three outs to an inning;
and a square infield with bases at each
corner, approximately 90 feet apart. In
addition, baserunners could be called out
either by being tagged or forced, rather than
being hit by a thrown ball.
On June 19, 1846, what is regarded as the
first officially recorded baseball game went
into the books. Cartwright was the umpire and
he enforced a fine of six cents against any
player who used foul language. The
Knickerbockers met the New York Nine and
lost, 23-1. On March 1, 1849, Cartwright did
something two of New York's major league
baseball teams would do more than a century
later. He left for California in search of gold.
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| Discover Flatiron: The Hugh O'Neill Building |
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The Hugh O'Neill Building, home to one
of the great New York City dry goods
emporiums more than a century ago, is a story
of domes, disappearance and durability.
The massive building, designed by architect
Mortimer Merritt, takes up the entire block
on Sixth Avenue between 20th and 21st Streets
- part of the Ladies' Mile Historic District.
When it was completed in 1887, it was
distinguished by a pair of gold-colored
beehive domes atop circular rooms at its
north and south corners. A four-story
structure that expanded to five in 1895, the
building was made of cast iron, but no one
alive today can say precisely what the domes
were made of. They were removed not long
after World War I and no blueprints or other
architectural plans were ever found.
When Elad Properties, the current owners,
asked permission to build five duplex
penthouses atop the roof as part of a
conversion to condominiums, the Landmarks
Preservation Commission agreed, providing the
domes were reinstalled. Working from old
photographs, the architectural firm
Cetra/Ruddy constructed modern-day versions
of fiberglass-reinforced plastic. The
17-foot-high domes, each weighing about two
tons and capped by six-foot finials, were
installed in late 2006 and the first
residents moved in shortly after.
The restored domes aren't the only clues to
the O'Neill Building's history. Corinthian
columns on the façade are echoed in the
cast-iron columns in the lobby as well as
throughout the apartments. The windows are
unusually large, for at least two reasons.
The original store had no electric lights,
making sunlight especially welcome. In
addition, O'Neill wanted passengers on the
Sixth Avenue El, just outside, to be able to
see inside the store as their trains went
roaring by.
Hugh O'Neill, whose name remains prominent on
the triangular pediment in the center of his
building, was born in Belfast in 1843 and
arrived in New York when he was 14. He and
his brother Henry founded the store on its
present site in 1867, gradually buying
adjoining lots until the present structure
was built 20 years later. He was one of New
York's great merchants and when he died in
1902, his funeral was attended by other
nearby entrepreneurial legends: Benjamin
Altman, Isidor and Nathan Straus of Macy's,
the Stern brothers, James McCreery, and Henry
Siegel and W.H. Cooper.
The O'Neill store closed in 1907. For the
next hundred years, the building's former
glory faded, as it housed a succession of
light industry and warehouse operations - but
it eventually managed to survive and to take
part in the rebirth of Sixth Avenue and the
Ladies' Mile.
For additional Discover Flatiron stories,
visit flatironbid.org/discover.
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| Free Flatiron Walking Tours Every Sunday |
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The Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership sponsors
free walking tours every Sunday. Join
our experienced guides on a 90-minute
journey through this vibrant neighborhood,
viewing some of the City's most notable
landmarks, including the New York Life
Insurance building, the MetLife Tower, the
Appellate Courthouse and the famous Flatiron
Building. Time:
Every Sunday at 11:00AM.
Meeting Place:
The southwest corner of Madison Square Park,
at 23rd Street and Broadway, in front of the
statue of William Seward.
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Snow or Slush,
For Clean Team
It's Not a Problem |
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Last year, the first real snowfall of the
season arrived on Valentine's Day. This year,
the first flakes to hit the Flatiron district
fell on George Washington's birthday. In
neither case was it a holiday for the BID's
Clean Team.
Snow began falling in the early morning
hours of Feb. 22 and at 7:00AM, a crew of
seven plus supervisor Adel "Benny" Ben-Brika,
snapped together their bright orange
waterproof jackets, pulled up their hoods and
hit the streets. Two men immediately began
tending the trash receptacles, while the
others started clearing the district's main
intersections. Wielding blue-bladed shovels,
push brooms and ice chippers, they first
worked their way across 23rd Street, then
branched out to the avenues and side streets,
making crosswalks passable for pedestrians.
"Our team doesn't focus on the sidewalks in
terms of snow removal," said
Scott Kimmins, the BID's Director of
Operations, who oversees the Clean Team.
"That's the province of the individual
buildings. We go after storm drains and curb
cuts. We need to keep the intersections
clear. We cut trenches in the snow so all
that slush finds its way to the storm drains
instead of into your shoes."
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