5th Avenue between 22nd and 23rd Street

Although some might consider 14th Street the cutoff of what is "downtown Manhattan," I think this area is still downtown. And besides, I'm not going to be too rigid about such things for this blog, since that would mean cutting off a lot of interesting blocks.

Here's a look at the east side of this block, which features a famous New York landmark, the Flatiron Building:

Here's a wider shot of Ol' Flatty (I don't think that's an actual nickname of the Flatiron Building):

Not only is this a classic New York building, but it's a unique one with its own character.

It was constructed in 1902. Many people think the building's name comes from its shape, but it actually comes from its architects, the brothers Mel and Barry Flatiron. Okay, I made that up. It really was built in 1902, though. 

On the Flatiron side of the block is a Sprint phone store and a shop called Origins that sells skincare. There's a gumball machine right outside the Origins store:

I'm not sure what gumballs have to do with peace of mind, but a gumball machine is always a nice touch.

Here's a wider shot of the store:

You can see a little bit in the above photo that the side of the Flatiron building has lots of interesting, detailed designs carved into it.

On the ground level at the northern tip of the Flatiron Building is an art piece:

When it says "We are all flakes!" I'm choosing to interpret that in the positive sense.

It would be nicer if the artwork wasn't brought to you by Sprint, but I guess it's better than no art there at all.

Here's some of what's on the other side of the block:

I couldn't decide what to complain about first in the above photo: A second phone store on the same block; a freakin' 7-Eleven in New York City; or the bank on the corner, since it seems like there's a bank on just about every block. I'm gonna go with the 7-Eleven. Why is that in the middle of Manhattan? I guess some people like it, but there's just so many delis and other food places all over. Whatever.

Here's some more of that side of the block:

Near the corner is Eisenberg's Sandwich Shop, which was my original motivation for writing about this block. I first heard of it in an episode of Anthony Bourdain's old show No Reservations. Along with being a sandwich shop, Eisenberg's also describes itself as a diner and coffee shop. It dates back to 1929 and is an authentic-feeling classic New York place, right down to the oldies from the '50s and '60's they play inside. I was surprised that I hadn't heard of it before, especially since I've walked right by it so many times in my life.

In the No Reservations episode they order a tuna sandwich, which sounded good to me, and a lime rickey, which I'd never had before but was curious to try.

The lime rickey was good. It had a unique, old-fashioned type of taste, and I couldn't tell exactly what was in it. My best guess was cranberry juice (something has to make it red) and ginger ale. Or maybe the red color just came from syrup they added to it? I tried looking up the ingredients to a lime rickey and there seem to be different versions. I don't know exactly how Eisenberg's makes it but in general a lime rickey seems to involve club soda, syrup, and possibly either soda or lime juice. Plus the lime wedge, of course. I don't know, let's just say it was good and leave it at that.

The tuna sandwich was delicious too by the way.

And on the way out they have complimentary mints at the register! Don't worry, germophobes, each mint is individually wrapped, not just loose in a big bowl:

Here's one more look at the west side of the block:

Between Eisenberg's and the Flatiron Building, this is a very nice block to visit. And you can see above that it also has a pretty good view of another famous New York building, whose name escapes me. Oh yeah, the Empire State Building.

I look forward to trying the malt and egg cream at future visits to Eisenberg's!