Flat Iron Buildings and Cumberland House

West side Flatiron commercial buildings and the Cumberland Apartment House (left) about 1900, seen from Broadway and 23rd Street. Photograph by Hermann Newell Tiemann (1863-1957). Source: Photographic views of New York City, from the collections of the New York Public Library.

This is the historical triangular block formed by the intersection of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, between 22nd and 23 streets. On the northern part, at 22nd Street, stood the Cumberland, originally the St. Germain Hotel, opened in 1856. It shows the large electric signs by the O.J. Gude Company. Advertisements was first placed in this wall, facing Madison Square, in 1890. The commercial buildings on the northern side were erected some years later of the site of a garden. These buildings were demolished in the early 1901 to make way for Flatiron Building, completed in 1902.

The Sohmer Piano Building at 170 5th Avenue, corner of Wes 22nd Street, with a two-story octagonal cupola, was completed about 1898.

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