Living near New York’s famed Flatiron Building off Madison Square, John Sloan frequently found his subject matter in the neighborhood. On June 10, he noted in his diary: "In the afternoon, walking on Fifth Avenue, we were on the edge of a beautiful wind storm, the air full of dust and a sort of panicky terror in all the living things in sight." This painting captures the mayhem of that afternoon, in which the Flatiron Building itself—the only skyscraper in a low-rise neighborhood—created the wind tunnel effect depicted by Sloan.