Get your tickets now for Celebrate Flatiron Partnerships 2012, the BID's annual networking event that honors the Partnership's community efforts and members of this vibrant neighborhood. The October 17th event will take place from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at 230 FIFTH, the spectacular 27th Street Penthouse Lounge and Rooftop Garden with its stunning skyline view. Admission is $30 per person and includes top-shelf bar service and hors d'oeuvres.

To purchase tickets, go to www.CFP2012.eventbrite.com by October 15th. Space is limited.

The Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership and TD Bank invite area business and property owners, managers and residents to our annual Fall Speaker Series with the Commanding Officer of the 13th Precinct, which includes the Flatiron BID, on October 3rd. Deputy Inspector Ted W. Berntsen (pictured at left) will give his perspective about safety and security in the district and provide updates on quality of life issues in the Flatiron area.

The event will take place at TD Bank, 260 Park Avenue South at 21st Street, from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. To attend, please RSVP to events@flatironbid.org or call (212) 741-2323.

The popular brand of digital DIY invitations now has a retail presence in Flatiron. Located at 45 West 21st Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, Envelopper Ink gives shoppers an option to create one-of-a-kind invites for weddings to bar mitzvahs and more. Mix and match colors from a selection of styles such as Gatefold or Pochette, and choose from a card stock collection that includes metallic shimmer-coated paper for the most imaginative invite ever!

Store hours are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and weekends 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Envelopper Ink, 45 West 21st Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, (212) 518-2303, www.envelopperinc.com

Gural-Senders admits to taking "great pride in the fact we offer office, retail and showroom space" that can range from 630 to 19,500 square feet. In addition, Gural-Senders reveals that "our retail stores sell home furnishings, electronics, hair products and apparel and our building amenities include the 230 FIFTH Buyer's Lounge, Lois Lane Travel Agency, Lobby Café and the legendary 230 FIFTH Rooftop Restaurant & Lounge," which has been in business since 2005 and is regarded as one of the best and largest outdoor venues to view the spectacular New York City skyline. Their dining menu features spiced beef sliders, oyster omelets and vegetarian crispy pastry puffs and signature martinis such as Spicy Mango, Great Grapes and Go Man Go.

And the incredible go-to guy behind 230 FIFTH's success was Steven A. Greenberg, the Brooklyn-born star of club ownership that included New York City's Roxy roller disco and the Palladium. Says Gural-Senders, "One of Steven's greatest achievements was naming this amazing bar 230 FIFTH and he was able to cultivate an amazing venue." Greenberg, who reportedly had a "striking resemblance to Benjamin Franklin" passed away in February from an eight-month long battle with lymphoma, according to his New York Times obituary. Adds Gural-Senders, "He was a brilliant businessman and promoter."  

230 Fifth Avenue circa 1983

Another person of similar qualities was also the property owner of the same site where 230 Fifth Avenue now stands. Paran Stevens, one of the country's most successful hoteliers of the 19th century, commissioned architect Richard Morris Hunt to build the Stevens House in 1870, a location considered as one of the earliest launches into Flatiron  district luxury residential living.

The 1873 economic panic, however, forced the property into conversion as the Victoria Hotel, where President Cleveland and his wife Frances made their first stop after leaving The White House for the "reserved rooms so that he might take off on a fishing trip to the Adirondacks," according to Grover Cleveland author Henry F. Graff. But by 1914, with the community's changing climate as a hub for business and the tourist trade, the property would undergo yet another transformation when Flatiron-based architectural firm Schwartz & Gross, the innovative pair behind some of the greatest  New York City apartment and commercial designs during their 40-year partnership, was hired to remodel the real estate with a new renovation technique.  

The foundation for the planned 20-story mercantile structure, which would be known as 230 Fifth Avenue or the Victoria Building, began at the same time the site's original property was also being demolished, according to reports in Real Estate Record and Builders Guide that year. The new 20,000 square feet Gothic-style location would also have "facades built of Quincy granite at the base and matt-glazed terra cotta above" in addition to "eleven high speed electric elevators," an "entrance hall finished in rich marbles and mosaics" and "floors made of cement and coated with an approved dust-proofing compound."

In the decades to follow, the showrooms and offices would be occupied by various companies that included the areas publishing, carpet cleaning services, women's fur apparel, men's automobile coats and government agencies such as the New York State Industrial Commission, which handled workers' compensation cases.

Gural-Senders explains that the building's present-day use is "in high demand and we are nearly 100% occupied" with a limited amount  space available for lease. "All of our guests and tenants know while at 230 Fifth Avenue they will have an outstanding experience!" And for Gural-Senders, it's also the Flatiron district, a place she "loves because it has it all!"     

230 Fifth Avenue and 230 FIFTH, southwest corner of 27th Street. For the Rooftop Restaurant & Lounge, call (212) 725-4300 or 230-fifth.com, and for showroom leasing, call (212) 689-6305 or (800) 698-5617 or 230fifthave.com.

Overnight subway shutdowns will take place on the B, D, F, and M lines, resulting in closures between 57th Street and the 14th Street corridor. Now through Friday, September 28th, there will be no train service on these lines from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.