Im transfixed by New Yorks high guys, whether outside my window or cheating death above the World Trade Centers 68th floor
The apartment block opposite mine in New York is having its balconies refurbished, and every day men in a three-sided window-washing cart are hoisted up the side of the building to work on it. I see them now outside the 18th floor, struggling to anchor the rig to the wall with only a thin plastic mesh between them and oblivion.
Yesterdays footage of two men dangling in a broken cart outside the 68th floor of the new World Trade Center was a reminder of how dangerous a job this still is. According to Adam Higginbotham in the New Yorker last year, most of the window washers are South American. Its a close-knit community, passing down family lines, like fire-fighting. The first window-washing scaffold was introduced only in 1952. Before that, men would simply stand on a ledge and hang on by their finger tips.
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