The original Fifth Avenue Hotel building, at 200 Fifth Avenue, was constructed
on the site of what had been the Fifth Avenue Hotel, which was completed in 1859
and was demolished in 1908. The 16-story building was completed in 1909 and was
originally known as the Fifth Avenue Building, which name is on the landmark clock
outside the front entrance, and the interlocked initials "F.A.B." were still in the
building's elevators in 2003. The architect was Robert Maynicke. Its ornate cast-iron
sidewalk clock built by Hecla Iron Works in 1909 was designated a landmark by the
Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1981.
The Flatiron district helped spark women’s right to vote in New York State and
subsequent passage of the U.S. Constitution’s 19th Amendment in 1920. During the
historic October 23, 1915, five-mile of an estimated 25,000 women who had walked
uptown on Fifth Avenue.
New York City's suffrage movement, however, launched several years earlier in the
Flatiron District. On February 16, 1908, a group of 23 women initiated a community
march. During that wintry Saturday, the women marched from their nearby Union Square
office to a public hearing at the Manhattan Trade School for Girls, then located on
East 23rd Street and Lexington Avenue. One march leader proclaimed, “For the long
work day, for the taxes we pay, for the laws we obey, we want something to say.”
These brave and heroic efforts by the suffragists would soon change the lives of women
across New York State as they were granted the right to vote in 1917. Three years later,
women gained voting rights across the United States with the passage of the 19th
Amendment when it officially became part of the U.S. Constitution on August 18, 1920.
This monument to a veteran of the Mexican-American War is one of only two in Manhattan
that serve as an actual mausoleum. Inside the 51-foot obelisk lie the mortal remains
of General William Jenkins Worth, one of only two monuments in New York that also
serve as mausoleums. The other is the much more famous Grant’s Tomb uptown.
The mausoleum is located on a small traffic island bordered by 25th Street, Broadway,
and 5th Avenue. The City originally leased this site at the intersection of Broadway,
Fifth Avenue, West 24th and West 25th Street in the Flatiron district of Manhattan to
the United States Government for $1.00 as part of an 1807 land deal. It reverted to
City ownership in 1824. Parks designated it as a public park in 1847. The monument
was designed by James Goodwin Batterson, whose pedigree also included being one of
the builders of the Capitol and Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. It features
plaques commemorating Worth’s principal battles, a bronze relief of the General
himself astride his horse, and a relic box placed in the cornerstone.
The Worth Monument is the second oldest monument in New York – the oldest being the
1856 George Washington equestrian monument at the southern end of Union Square.