IN THE YEAR SINCE THE FLATIRON DISTRICT'S PEDESTRIAN
plazas made their debut, they have become one of the most popular and highly trafficked spots in the neighborhood.

The plazas have become a panorama of pastimes: dozing and posing, eating and tweeting, making plans and getting tans, winding down and loosening up.

According to figures compiled by the Flatiron Partnership's Public Safety Officers, an average of almost 1,200 people a day have been using the plazas since early June.

That doesn't even take into account:

• Film students developing class projects.
• Television crews taping new episodes.
• Movie directors making feature films.
• Fashion designers conducting shoots.
• Ad executives creating commercials.

Toyota promoted its Prius hybrid cars by planting a bunch of solar-powered plastic flowers on the plazas.

The Living Zero Home Tour installed an eco-friendly house to demonstrate energy efficiency.

"Ugly Betty" discovered the "Taj Mahotdog" of fast-food carts.

Nike laid out a one-day tennis court.

"The plazas have created a whole new realm of public space in the neighborhood from the day they were created," said Jennifer Brown, Executive Director of the Flatiron Partnership. "They have been used by people from near and far, and it's been a source of pride for the BID over the past year to carefully maintain and beautify these spaces through an agreement with the Department of Transportation. We look forward to further enlivening the plazas through additional programming."

As part of its Public Improvement Program, the BID provides the plazas with security and sanitation. Its Public Safety Officers maintain a consistent presence and its Clean Team keeps the area free of litter. In addition, the BID maintains the flowering planters whose colorful blossoms have softened the urban landscape and established islands of tranquility amid a sea of asphalt.

This summer, to aid tourists as well as those who live and work here, the Partnership set up a Visitor Information Cart on the main plaza, where free Discover Flatiron Maps and Discover Flatiron Walking Tour brochures are available to all. They have been snapped up by the thousands, proving to be as irresistible as the plazas themselves.

THE THIRD EDITION OF THE EXTREMELY
popular Discover Flatiron Map will be distributed in November and there is a limited amount of advertising space still available.

Interested parties have only until Sept. 15 to book ad space on the map, which made its initial appearance in 2007 and was updated in 2008. More than 140,000 copies have been distributed throughout New York City and beyond. They are available at hotels, visitors' centers and businesses throughout the district, as well as at the new Visitor Information Cart that was installed this year on the public plaza just north of the Flatiron Building.

In addition to the full-color map, which includes the locations of district businesses, parking facilities, mass transit lines and major architectural attractions, a comprehensive guide to businesses and services throughout the district is on the flip side.

With only a few ad spaces still available, interested parties are urged to contact the Flatiron Partnership as soon as possible. For additional information, including ad rates, please call Eric Zaretsky, Director of Marketing & Economic Development, at (212) 741-2323 or e-mail him at ezaretsky@flatironbid.org.

To see a current version of the Discover Flatiron Map, click here.

THE FLATIRON PARTNERSHIP'S
next Speaker Series event, which kicks off the fall season this month, will put the spotlight on safety and security, with two key members of the New York Police Department as guest speakers.

The event is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 24, from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. at the storefront headquarters of Bid on the City, a real estate firm at 226 Fifth Avenue, near 27th Street. Bid on the City is co-sponsoring the program, which includes a complimentary breakfast.

The speakers will be Chief Raymond Diaz, the new Borough Chief for Manhattan South, and Deputy Inspector Timothy Beaudette, Commanding Officer of the 13th Precinct. Chief Diaz will talk about community policing practices and offer projections for future policies. Deputy Inspector Beaudette, whose precinct includes the Flatiron district, will discuss current crime trends and how he plans to address various quality-of-life issues vital to the neighborhood. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions.

Property owners, businesses and residents are invited. Please RSVP by Sept. 21 by calling the Flatiron Partnership at (212) 741-2323 or by sending an e-mail to events@flatironbid.org.

AS THE CALENDAR PREPARES TO
shift into fall this month, the Flatiron Partnership is following suit with the unveiling of new seasonal banners. Sixty newly designed banners have just been installed on streetlights throughout the district, replacing the spring-summer versions that went aloft in May.

Once again designed by Pentagram, the internationally celebrated design firm whose U.S. headquarters are in the heart of the district, they display the iconic Flatiron Partnership "intersection" logo in a pattern that evokes the crisp feeling of autumn leaves. And once again, the banners are sponsored by local businesses whose logos are prominently featured.

The banners are regarded as an important way to increase awareness of the Flatiron 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 and locations, contact Eric Zaretsky, the BID's Director of Marketing and Economic Development, at (212) 741-2323 or via e-mail at ezaretsky@flatironbid.org.

IN CELEBRATION OF THE
Flatiron district's rich architectural heritage, the BID is partnering with the Van Alen Institute (www.vanalen.org), a prestigious non-profit architectural organization concerned with the public realm, for an exhibition and panel discussion this fall entitled "Flatiron High and Low."

The title refers to four interpretations of the phrase "high and low": height, cost, technology and culture. Details are still being worked out, but both an opening-night reception, slated for Tuesday, Oct. 27, and the exhibition will be at the Institute's headquarters, 30 West 22nd Street. It will run through most of November, with a closing date yet to be determined. The panel discussion is set for Tuesday, Nov. 3. The exhibition and all events associated with it are free and open to the public.

Additional details will be forthcoming as they develop.

For information about event sponsorships, please contact Eric Zaretsky, the BID's Director of Marketing and Economic Development, at (212) 741-2323 or via e-mail at ezaretsky@flatironbid.org.

IT'S BEEN A BUSY SUMMER FOR THE NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL,
which has enacted several key programs and initiatives geared at helping small businesses, those with fewer than 100 employees.

To relieve those businesses of what the Council views as "burdensome regulations," it has created a Regulatory Review Panel that will review the City's various regulations, point out those it considers outdated or unnecessary and evaluate the rulemaking process at City agencies. It is expected to deliver its initial findings and recommendations to City Hall by Dec. 31. Interested parties may submit questions, suggestions and comments to the panel through November.

In addition, the Council is launching a "Fine Forgiveness Program," a three-month period from Sept. 15 through Dec. 15 during which small business owners and homeowners who have been fined for various violations by the Environmental Control Board may pay the initial fine, but have any outstanding penalty and interest payments waived. To qualify, the conditions that resulted in the fine must be corrected.

Finally, working with the Mayor and the City's Economic Development Corporation, the Council has added $5 million to its loan program for small businesses. Those interested is securing a loan should apply "as soon as possible" to take advantage of the new funding, urged Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn.

THE SIDNEY MISHKIN GALLERY WILL launch its new season this month with an exhibit entitled "The Nature of Landscape/The Nature of Photography." Work by a dozen photographers will be on view, including aerial photos, close-up or cropped images, silhouetted forms and frozen landscapes, all aimed at challenging the perception of nature and redefining traditional views of landscape.

Drawn from the Baruch College art collection, the exhibit will feature photographs by Tom Baril, Marilyn Bridges, Lucien Clergue, Sally Gall, Ralph Gibson, Erica Lennard, Alen MacWeeney, Jill Mathis, Joel Meyerowitz, Eliot Porter, Robert A. Schaefer Jr. and Andy Warhol.

The show will run from Sept. 17 to Oct. 14. An opening reception will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 16, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The Mishkin Gallery, part of Baruch College, is at 135 East 22nd Street. It is open from noon to 5 p.m., Mondays to Fridays, and until 7 p.m. on Thursdays. For more information, click here.

AS ANOTHER SCHOOL YEAR GETS UNDER
way, there's a definite feeling of France in Flatiron.

This month marks the opening of Ecole Internationale de New York (EINY), the newest of more than 400 French International schools around the world and the third in Manhattan. The others are Lycée Français de New York and Lyceum Kennedy. EINY, which is at 111 East 22nd Street, is for pre-schoolers to fifth graders, boys and girls aged 3 to 11. Its mission is to provide a bilingual education in French and English, with the introduction of a third language starting in third grade, and to combine the more classical and disciplined approach of French educators with the more fluid teaching of American schools.

Students who speak either French or English are welcome. Pre-schoolers who speak only one of those languages will typically learn the other during regular classes, but older children who enter the school speaking only French or English might need extra classes to become bilingual.

"We feel diversity is extremely important," said Yves Rivaud, the Head of School, who moved over from Lyceum Kennedy, where he held the same position since 2003. "I'm talking diversity with respect to race, culture, socio-economic background, language. We want all kinds of families."

Rivaud and Clyde Javois, Director of Admissions, are EINY's co-founders.

The first batch of students at EINY numbers 30, with a mix of children from the U.S., France and other countries, said Javois.

EINY is in session from Mondays to Fridays, with classes from approximately 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. A special "good morning" program allows students to be dropped off as early as 7:30 a.m. In addition to academic studies, there are numerous after-school events ranging from piano, guitar and violin lessons to theater arts, martial arts and modern Greek. Day-care facilities for pre-schoolers are also available.

For additional information, click here.

EVERYTHING ABOUT SAN ROCCO,
a sleek new restaurant at 37 West 24th Street, is Italian, from its owner to its chef to its menu. Even the furniture, fixtures, flatware and cutlery are Italian-made.

San Rocco is named for its owner, Rocco Arena, a Milanese businessman. The chef is Massimiliano Convertini, formerly head chef at Bottega Del Vino on 59th Street and originally from Puglia in southern Italy. The restaurant, which is next door to the Wyndham Garden Hotel-Manhattan Chelsea West, seats 80. It is open daily for breakfast from 6:30 a.m. to 10 a.m., for lunch from noon to 3 p.m., and for dinner from 6 p.m. until 10:30 p.m. Snacks and panini are available between lunch and dinner.

Entrees include merluzzo (potato-wrapped codfish filet with wild mushrooms and Vernacia wine sauce), orata (Sicilian sea bream encrusted with sea salt and served with baby vegetables), and grilled filet mignon with red onion marmalade and Gorgonzola sauce.

For more information, call (212) 255-4655 or click here.

DEEP IN A BASEMENT ON EAST 27TH STREET, FAUSTO FAMILIA,
a 38-year-old woodcarver from the Dominican Republic, focuses on his collection of gouges, chisels and knives, selects one and begins to meticulously cut the shape of a lotus flower into the slab of white maple clamped to his workbench. When completed, the piece will become part of an armoire that will be shipped to a client of Devon Shops, which this year is celebrating its 80th birthday and is one of the neighborhood's more unusual businesses.

Even though the Flatiron district is chockablock with stores that specialize in furniture and furnishings for the home as well as antiques and housewares and hardware -- all a reflection of the renaissance in the area's residential growth -- Devon is different from any of them.

For one thing, it is not a store. It is a showroom. For another, it was one kind of business for its first half century, then changed dramatically 30 years ago. From its founding in 1929, Devon was on 21st Street just east of Broadway, where it operated solely as an importer of fine furniture frames from Italy that were then sold to interior decorators. It did that for 50 years.

In 1979, the business was acquired by Charlotte Barbakow, a Chicago-born antiques collector and furniture designer, who had other ideas. She wanted to deal with more than furniture frames. She wanted the filling. Almost immediately, she moved Devon a few blocks north, into expanded quarters at 111 East 27th Street, and she turned the business from an importer of frames into a maker of custom-designed furniture that would replicate the classic pieces she had fallen in love with while traveling in Europe and living in Paris.

Today, Devon is known for its reproductions of 18th-century pieces that can be custom-designed to suit individual tastes and pocketbooks. Those replicas can also be "modernized," so that a copy of an 18th-century armoire, for example, might include a sturdy shelf for a large-screen television set and an antique cabinet might be outfitted with a hidden drawer for precious items.

Devon's 6,000-square-foot space is divided into a street-level showroom that sits above a cavernous basement workshop where Fausto Familia and his fellow master craftsmen -- woodcarvers, cabinet makers, upholsterers and finishers -- display their skills.

The showroom is a sea of samples: armoires, cabinets, tables, sofas, beds and chairs. All are in natural muslin and unfinished woods, and all await personal treatment as clients work with Barbakow on fabrics, finishes and design elements.

Reflecting Barbakow's years in Paris, the periods most represented at Devon are Louis XV, Louis XVI and Regency. There is also the company's new "Transitional Seize" collection, which Barbakow describes as a line with "more of a contemporary look, but one that looks good with the curves and classic elements traditionally associated with period furniture."

If people are beginning to furnish a new home, she said, the first items they generally look for are armoires, beds or dining tables.

"They take care of the big things first. Then they work around them."

One of Devon's "big things" is quality - and that's something in which Babakow has complete confidence.

"Because the workshop is right here," she said with emphasis, "we maintain total quality control. Here, it's all about the quality."

Devon Shops
111 East 27th Street
www.devonshop.com

• The Business of the Flatiron
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• Flatiron BID Annual Meeting
• Christine Quinn to Speak at Flatiron BID Event
• Information Booth Planned for Pedestrian Plaza
• New York Times - Historic Flatiron Walking Tour
• The Transformation of NYC's Madison Square (video by Streetfilms)
• amNew York: Flatiron's Fanciful Flight
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The Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership Business Improvement District, formed in 2006, is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to enhance the area's reputation as one of New York's most vital and exciting neighborhoods. This is undertaken by maintaining a clean and safe environment for those who live, work and visit the area; by spearheading area improvement projects; and by marketing the diverse business and retail options in this vibrant and historic neighborhood.

For more information go to our Web site at www.discoverflatiron.org or e-mail us at info@flatironbid.org.

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