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For more than a century, the Flatiron Building has been one of New York’s most photographed landmarks, without ever putting on a proper nighttime show. That’s about to change.
When the 307-foot Beaux-Arts beauty unveils its restored exterior later this year, it will debut something it’s never had in its 123-year history: exterior lighting. Thanks to a newly approved plan by design studio L’Observatoire International, the wedge-shaped wonder at Fifth Avenue, Broadway and 23rd Street will finally shine like its fellow skyline icons.
The Landmarks Preservation Commission has signed off on a scheme that will bathe the upper five floors in LED glow while also spotlighting the ornate limestone, brick and terra cotta detailing on the lower façade. Developer Daniel Brodsky calls it “an honor” to give the Flatiron its first-ever lighting plan—one that will see it join the illuminated ranks of the New York Life, Metropolitan Life and Con Ed towers.
The move caps a multi-year, $161.5 million rescue and restoration effort by Brodsky, Jeffrey Gural of GFP Real Estate and Italy’s Sorgente Group, who stepped in after a botched 2023 auction left the building in limbo. Since then, scaffolding and black netting that have cloaked the Flatiron for nearly six years have slowly given way to painstaking repairs: replacing more than 1,000 windows, scrubbing decades of soot from its façade and meticulously restoring thousands of terra cotta pieces.
It’s all part of the building’s transformation from long-vacant offices—it’s been empty since Macmillan Publishers moved out in 2019—into 38 private residences designed by Studio Sofield, with interiors inspired by the building’s original materials and proportions. Expect some apartments to tuck breakfast nooks into the building’s famously narrow prow.
Originally completed in 1902 as the Fuller Building, the Flatiron was one of Manhattan’s first skyscrapers and quickly became a muse for photographers, from Edward Steichen to every tourist with an iPhone. But for all its fame, it’s never had the literal spotlight until now.
Once the restoration wraps, the Flatiron’s glow-up will be visible from Madison Square Park to miles down Broadway. After 123 years of playing it cool in the dark, New York’s most famous triangle is finally ready for its close-up, bathed in light from tip to toe.