This Is New York: Miriam Berman, Author

NEW YORK—In the early 1900s, the picture postcard was very popular. The iconic Flatiron Building—a new high-rise in the bustling center of New York City—was among the most widely reproduced image.

As time passed, other buildings took the forefront, and picture postcards were replaced with cheaper versions that were more easily mass produced. But some of the old ones were kept and stored in shoe boxes for the next generation to discover.

About 80 years after many of the images were captured, Miriam Berman opened one of those shoe boxes. It was then that her love of the Flatiron area truly developed and her life changed. The graphic designer started becoming a historical preservationist.

“One day a friend took me to a postcard show. We walked into this ballroom, and it was filled with shoe boxes. A grand ballroom filled with tables and shoe boxes on them. Each shoebox was a different subject,” said Berman at Madison Square Park in late May.

Her friends were into collecting postcards of the Jersey Shore, but Berman wanted something different, “Somebody said I was in an important building, so I said maybe I’ll see if there are some Flatiron buildings,” she said.

Berman began thumbing through the boxes and noticed the Flatiron Building and the Empire State Building were the most reproduced. “I’ve never [collected] in my life. As I started to collect I also started to see that there was a subject on Madison Square,” she said. She purchased a few and began her collection.

Berman continued to work as a graphic designer, but soon her passion for the buildings and history captured in the postcards began to take over. “From postcards it went to prints to photographs to books to everything—I have everything,” she said, adding with a laugh, “This is just a hobby that just grew out of hand.”

Berman has become an encyclopedia on the Flatiron District. She admires the area, not as much for its aesthetics now, but for its historical significance back in the time that those picture postcards were taken. She began actively collecting postcards nearly 30 years ago.

“It was like the Times Square of its time. This is where everyone gathered,” she said. “If you come down Fifth Avenue and approach [the Flatiron Building], it is the same view that people have been seeing since the 1850s. I don’t know of another place where you can sit back and enjoy it.”

In an effort to share her passion for this special part of New York City, Berman published her first book in 2001 on the Flatiron District titled “Madison Square, The Park and Its Celebrated Landmarks,” a work of non-fiction that chronicles the history of Madison Square Park. The book also talks about buildings no longer standing, including the original Madison Square Garden, which was at the north end of Madison Square Park.

“It was just too fascinating to me that the building [Flatiron] had stood in the company of all of these buildings—all of which had tremendous histories in and of themselves. Then I started to find out all of the connections—this was the height of the Gilded Age, the late 1800s,” she said.

Berman expanded her historical interest from the Flatiron District to all over New York City. She added postcards to her collection with images of many of the city’s iconic structures and places. As she continued to pore through books about the history of the city, she started to come across quotes that seemed to match the images she was collecting.

“Every time I would find something that was a match, I would keep a notebook going,” she said. “I eventually showed it to someone and said, let’s do a little book on that.” In 2004, she published her second book titled “New York in Words and Images,” a collection of 20 vintage postcards and literary quotes.

Missing Sculpture

In addition to writing about the Flatiron District, Berman also became involved in historic preservation of the area. In 1990 a shield and two figures were removed from the top of the Flatiron Building for cleaning and restoration.

By 1995 Berman and a small group of fellow preservationists noticed the sculptures still had not been returned. Concerned, she called the Landmarks Commission to report them missing. “They were totally unaware that the sculpture had been taken off the building and was not there,” Berman said.

Two weeks later she received a call back from the commission: “They said that they had gotten in touch with the people who owned the Flatiron Building and said they had to either find it and put it back, or recreate it and put it back. Of course they couldn’t find it,” Berman said.

A French sculptress working in Long Island City was hired to recreate the sculptures from photographs. In August 2001, the sculpture was replaced atop the Flatiron Building. The original is still missing.

“Now you can see how sharp you are because if you watch old movies or look at posters, greeting cards, and postcards, you will see the top of the building without the sculpture on it,” Berman said.

Berman’s knowledge of the Madison Square Park area is surpassed only by her passion for the history the area enshrines. In hopes of enlightening the next generation, Berman teamed up with the Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership to give free 90-minute walking tours on select Sundays.

While she still does graphic design work from time to time, her passion is the park, “I hope it is here forever and that people [continue to] keep an eye on it. It will continue to change, and that’s the beauty of it. It always has morphed and changed with the times.”

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