Glass panel falls, kills worker on job site

From CBS 2:

A security guard was killed and a worker was hurt when a large panel of glass fell at a construction site near Central Park Saturday morning.

The FDNY said it responded to calls for a construction related accident at 217 West 57th St. just after 10:30 a.m.

When medics arrived they observed that a large glass panel had fallen onto 67-year-old Harry Ramnauth.

He was rushed to Mt. Sinai Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

A 27-year-old construction worker was hurt, as well. His injuries are believed to be non-life threatening.

Police said the glass panel was in the process of being moved when it fell and crushed the 67-year-old, who was working as as security guard at the location.

The incident remains under investigation.

The property already had a stop work order in effect when this happened.

Glass box for Flushing non-profit

From Curbed:

Housing non-profit Asian Americans for Equality are set to open a large new community and entrepreneurship center in Flushing, Queens that will be located at the corner of College Point Boulevard and 39th Avenue. The seven-story structure will span 90,000 square feet and is being designed in collaboration between JCJ Architecture and Leong Leong.

Plans so far call for an outdoor plaza on the ground floor that will connect to a 5,000-square-foot public market. The second floor will be configured in such a way that it can be used for a variety of events, meetings, exhibitions, and performances. This floor also comes with a large terrace. The third floor will house a business incubator that will provide the neighborhood’s businesses a co-working space, and an area to collaborate. Floors five through seven will offer additional office space.

The architects have also designed a three-story staircase that starts at the base of the structure. This creates a seating area for the market on the ground floor, and on the second and third floor, it can be used for events, performances, and screenings.

How's this for a contextual building?

This lovely specimen is located at 32-56 Steinway Street in Astoria and is basically one huge ad.

Why? Because they can.

People in glass houses really feel the heat

From the Wall Street Journal:

The skyline of New York is dotted with new glass condominium towers featuring some of the most expensive and sought-after apartments in the city.

But a new study is warning that there could be a price to pay for the grand views: Some high-rise apartments could become as overheated as a hot yoga studio in a prolonged summertime blackout, similar in duration to the one that followed superstorm Sandy.

In the winter, the study found that in a prolonged cold wave interior temperatures would plummet in glass towers during a blackout to a low of 35 degrees over seven days, but would fall even more in single-family homes and older brick apartment towers built with little insulation.

The study is part of a campaign by the Urban Green Council, a building industry group that worked on post-Sandy planning, to push New York developers to meet higher performance standards in the future. The council has called the glass-walled construction "a major step backward" environmentally; instead, it favors less exposed glass in new towers as well as expensive triple-pane glass and other improvements.