10/11/2026
A of the in . Due to the geography of the site, wind from the north would split around the building, downdrafts from above and updrafts from the vaulted area under the street combined to make the wind unpredictable. The winds raised women’s skirts and scattered paper bills from pedestrians’ pocketbooks. According to some accounts, this gave rise to the phrase “23 skidoo”, sometimes spelled “23 skiddoo”. Policemen would shout this phrase at men who tried to get glimpses of women’s dresses being blown up by the winds swirling around the building due to the strong downdrafts. Films from the Library of Congress confirm that the building’s shape contributed to high winds around the intersection of Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and 23rd Street. The origin of the phrase “23 skidoo” itself is disputed; even before the building was constructed, the number “twenty-three” and the word “skidoo” were independently used as expressions of dismissal.
The winds allegedly also caused damage to neighboring structures, prompting some critics to request that the Flatiron Building be shortened or demolished.[298] The winds prompted a lawsuit from a nearby property owner,[299] and they were also blamed for the 1903 death of a bicycle messenger, who was blown into the street and run over by a car.[300][301] Newspapers of the time also claimed that “every window in the building” would break in high winds, although the American Architect and Building News observed that only a few windows broke during one such instance of high winds.[291] Pedestrians were initially reluctant to walk on the same side of the street as the Flatiron Building because of concerns over the wind gusts, but these concerns had largely dissipated by the mid-20th century.
