Twenty-three Skidoo! With love from The Flatiron Building

Yesterday I popped into NYC for a meeting in the shadow of the Flatiron building.  I've got a special fondness for the Flatiron, in large part because of a cameo appearance it makes on my novel Catherine:



































Cameos aside, though, the Flatiron is poetry in limestone (and glazed terracotta, according to Wikipedia).  Apart from being one of the world's most iconic buildings and one of lower Manhattan's first skyscrapers, it serves as home to Macmillan Publishers Ltd.  Its "point" offices have a killer view of the Empire State Building.  And the phrase "23 Skidoo" was apparently inspired by freakish air currents the building creates on 23rd Street.  Something to do with women's skirts getting blown unexpectedly up...again, according to Wikipedia.

Anyway, something really cool is going on right now inside the Flatiron, as I discovered yesterday.  If you should find yourself in the neighborhood, get right up close to the ground floor windows in the building's point and take a peek inside.  Here's part of what you'll see:

The Whitney has installed a 3D diorama-style recreation of Edward Hopper's painting Nighthawks which was--like so much art--inspired by the Flatiron.  The installation will be up until October 6, and coincides with a Hopper show at the Whitney.  As great as the installation is by day, I'll bet it looks even better at night: