What Amazon Prime’s ‘The Boys’ gets right about the Flatiron Building
- The Flatiron Building’s arched windows, unique triangular shape, and tall columns are all on display in ‘The Boys’
- The landmark’s owners plan to convert the office building into condos. The Boys might need to find new digs
Marvin Milk (Laz Alonso) and the gang hang in their Flatiron Building offices in the fourth season of the hit show "The Boys," which recently aired its final episode.
Photo courtesy Amazon MGM Studios
There’s a lot going on in the latest season of Amazon Prime’s offbeat series “The Boys”—a proposal gone wrong, a marine murder, and even a plot to take over America. But comic book enthusiasts and New York City real estate nerds alike may have noticed an iconic landmark featured in the fourth season: The Flatiron Building.
The 22-story tower serves as the headquarters for the titular boys in the third and fourth seasons, where they scheme ways to defeat the supervillain Homelander and get beaten up by his cronies on more than one occasion. It’s the heart of their operations, but in real life, the Flatiron Building sits almost entirely empty, ahead of a planned conversion into luxury apartments.
Read on for what “The Boys” gets right about this coveted NYC property.
[Editor's note: When a movie or TV show is set in New York City—and if the people making it are savvy—real estate becomes part of the story itself. In Reel Estate, Brick Underground reality checks the NYC real estate depicted on screen.]
The Flatiron Building: a skinny legend
The space portrayed in “The Boys” is a replica of one of the Flatiron Building’s floors. (The show was filmed in Toronto, not on location, according to an Amazon spokesperson). But the Flatiron Building’s unique architecture is visible even in its Canadian dupe.
Designed by Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, the building features a triangular shape that mirrors the parcel of land it sits on, lined by Fifth Avenue, East 22nd Street, Broadway, and East 23rd Street at its slimmest side.
Its arched windows, limestone and terra cotta facade, and unusual dimensions helped transform it into a NYC icon, though it was called an “architectural monstrosity” when it was completed in 1902. It’s been featured in movies including The Usual Suspects, New York Minute, and Sam Raimi’s “Spiderman,” where it serves as the offices of the Daily Bugle.
In “The Boys,” the Flatiron Building’s unique shape is on display as the squad’s renegade leader William Butcher (Karl Urban) confronts the rest of his team. The show seems to have gotten the dimensions right; The Flatiron Building has columns spaced 11 feet and six inches apart, according to GFP Real Estate, one of its owners, and measures just six feet across on its narrowest end.
But the television series has taken a few liberties with the Flatiron Building’s interior. The lighting fixtures and furniture are all imagined—the real Flatiron building has sat mostly empty since 2019, when longtime tenant Macmillan Publishers moved out. A few of its higher floors have even been stripped to reveal its steel skeleton.
Yes, it’s an office building, but not for long
While “The Boys” uses the Flatiron Building as an office, the owners of the real-world property plan to convert it into residential apartments.
The Brodsky Organization, which owns a stake in the building, plans to transform it into 40 residences, either condominiums or rental apartments, The New York Times reported. (Brodsky declined to comment for this story). The ground floor, home to a T-Mobile store, will remain a retail space.
The conversion plan came after the building was sold at a court-mandated auction last year, after the previous owners (including GFP) couldn’t agree on how to go about repairs. The sale was full of surprises; the original winning bidder Jacob Garlick, who offered up $190 million for the building, failed to pay a $19 million deposit and the Flatiron Building had to be sold again, at $161 million, to a group led by GFP Chairman Jeff Gural, The Times reported.
It could take years to turn the iconic building into apartments, so “The Boys” should have plenty of time to score a deal on some new NYC digs, provided they can escape Homelander’s grasp.
