It was the financier Jacob Garlick, founder of the Abraham Trust investment fund, who won this “Iron“, empty since 2019, commissioner Matthew Mannion of the auction company Mannion Auctions confirmed to AFP on Thursday. The buyer will have to pay by Friday evening “10% of that amount — $19 million — failing which the property will go to the second highest bidder, Jeff Gural, who represented 75% of the owners and offered $189.5 million“, according to Mr. Mannion.
The “Flatiron Building” is an office building with 22 floors and 87 meters high, located in Midtown Manhattan, at the intersection of 22nd Street, Fifth Avenue and Broadway. Its pointed shape, in “Iron“, recognizable among all and which gave it its name is explained by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway, the only avenue in Manhattan that is not aligned with the rectilinear plane of the island. Built in two years and completed in 1902, the “Flatiron“was built by an architect of the Chicago school, Daniel Burnham, in the Beaux-Arts stylelike many New York buildings, for example the huge Grand Central station.
The loser, Mr. Gural, declared himself “a bit in shock“, on local television NY1, that “someone paid so much for this piece of the city’s heritage“.
It’s a nice building, but it needs $100 million in renovations
he warned. “It’s been a dream since I was 14“, rejoiced, on the same channel, the lucky winner, Mr. Garlick by committing to “preserve its integrity forever“.
