After decades, Macmillan, the publisher that produced my two novels, has left the Flatiron Building in New York. I am surprised that this news causes such a pang. But then, those days were exciting and unique
The first description following, is my blog where I describe my first meeting with my editor. During my first trip to New York. Where I first entered the Flatiron Building
The second article is by an editor at Macmillan, describing what it was like to leave the Flatiron Building and move elsewhere.
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My friend Google tells me that “over the transom” is still a viable term. In this case it refers to a manuscript accepted by an editor submitted cold – perhaps even from the dreaded slush pile.
At any rate, my manuscript for A LOST TALE was accepted “over the transom”, and I was asked to New York to meet the editor. Although I had experienced and appreciated Montréal,
Toronto, London, Berlin and other large cities by that time, I had not been to New York. Many events of that trip are memorable, but none more than my “lunch” with the editor.
The editor took me to some dark and trendy place for a late lunch. There were not many people there and, restaurant fiend though I am, the food was not my top priority. Discussion of “the work” and proposed changes was more on the menu for me.
However, as I sit across the table from my editor, I can not help but notice a man seated by himself beside the wall. He is tieless and shirtless and, though the lighting is dim, what there is reflects from his naked skin. He sits with a beverage and seems to hum to himself. My editor is discussing both the menu and some confusion he perceives at the beginning of my novel. I note items on the menu unknown to me and am doubly confused.
The shirtless man at the other table increases the volume of his humming and eventually a waiter goes to him and has words. The shirtless man has words back, but they sound like gibberish. At my table the editor suggests something from the menu and I happily comply. There is wine.
Whilst I eat and listen to suggestions, the shirtless man is spoken to by two other waiters. As I (wisely) restrict myself to a second glass of wine, two uniformed policemen enter the restaurant and approach the shirtless man, whose gibberish had increased even more in volume. In the course of a few minutes three other uniformed police officers – one of them female – arrive on the scene. They are now ranged around the shirtless man and his table. I finally tell my editor what is happening behind him and why I am not concentrating fully upon his suggestions. He turns around.
Two of the officers remove the table from in front of the shirtless man. Two others, one on each side of him, haul him to his feet. It is then that we see his shirtless state continues all the way to his naked feet. The female officer takes the tablecloth from the table and drapes it around him. The four male officers form a circle around the naked, shrouded man uttering his gibberish, and hustle him from the restaurant. The female officer picks up what appears to be a pile of clothes from beneath the table, and a pair of roller skates, and follows them.
I say to my editor that I have never seen anything like that.
My editor concurs.
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Bidding Farewell to the Flatiron Building
Kat Brzozowski, in a photo taken from CEO John Sargent’s office on the Flatiron’s 19th floor.
Today’s the first day that Mac Kids is in our new home at 120 Broadway. We spent the past few weeks packing our work belongings in orange crates, preparing to settle into the Equitable Building in the Financial District, trading our beloved triangle for an H-shaped office (because what would Macmillan be without an unusual layout?). I still remember arriving at the Flatiron Building for my first day 10 years ago. I looked up at the building in awe, thinking, “I can’t believe I get to work there.”
Walking through the Flatiron Building was like traveling through a science museum that showcases different ecosystems—the rainforest, the desert, the tundra. In your office on the 7th floor, you’d be stripped down to a tank top, sweating, with the AC blasting even though it was full-on snowing outside. But travel to the 10th floor conference room, and you’d be covered head to toe, wrapped up in an actual blanket, shivering.
The bathrooms alternated by floor—men on even, women on odd—and we all knew which bathrooms to avoid (the ones so small you’d be bumping elbows with your boss on the way out), and the ones that a friend called “destination bathrooms” (11, with its large waiting area; 19, with a gorgeous view of the city). Those bathrooms were worth the elevator ride. And who knows, while you were waiting—which could take a while—you might run into Jill Biden, or Tyra Banks, or Jim Carrey.
At my first job at Macmillan, at Thomas Dunne Books, I worked on the 17th floor in a sectioned-off area we called “the annex,” but which I thought of as Narnia. No one could ever find me, because my desk was accessed through a door that not every floor had. Yes, every floor was different, giving the building a funhouse feeling as you wove left and right, searching for the conference room or the kitchen anew with each floor.
There’s no experience similar to working in the Flatiron Building. We’d bemoan the lack of conference rooms, then brag to our friends that we got to work in that building. We’d complain about the fact that we needed our key cards to get from one side of the floor to the other, then we’d pour out of the doors at lunchtime to get burgers at Shake Shack, or a BLT at Eisenberg’s, or a flat white at Birch Coffee, a plethora of delicious (and affordable) options spread out in front of us like a glorified mall food court. We’d tell our authors, “Don’t get your hopes up, it’s not that nice inside,” then see their eyes light up as they took out their phones to snap a shot from the point office, with views that stretched all the way to Times Square, with the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building so close you felt you could reach out and touch them.
That feeling I had on my first day in 2009 hasn’t gone away. I’ve felt it again and again over the past 10 years, the magic of seeing something from a postcard come to life in front of me. Farewell, Flatiron Building. You’re leaving a triangle-shaped hole in our hearts.
Kat Brzozowski is senior editor at Swoon Reads/Feiwel & Friends.
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