The Last Strap Hanging Window Washer In New York

Those sash windows. The last strap hanging window washer in New York.

The last strap hanging window washer in New York: This video shows the last known strap hanging window washer in New York. Charlie, on the eleventh floor of Manhattan’s Chanin Building, opens a metal clamp attached to a leather strap around his waist and swings out, pinning it to one corner of the window frame. After attaching the second clamp, he gets to work suspended high above 42nd street.

According to YouTuber Giselle Benatar, he cleans all the windows of the Chanin Building which is sixty stories high. The Chanin building still has windows that open by sliding up and down, in other buildings, these have been replaced with new windows that flip in and out meaning you can wash them from the inside.

Benatar says, “most buildings no longer need window washers with Charlie’s formidable free-form suspension skills.” The union says he’s the last strap hanging window washer in the city.

Nerves of Steel: Last strap hanging window washer in New York (by Giselle Benatar): A sharp rap on my office door, and there stands Charlie. “You got flowers,” he says,"You need those windows washed.” I warily agree, so he carefully removes the flower pots from my window sill and plants his work boots. Opening a metal clamp attached to a leather strap around his waist, he swings out and pins it to one corner of the outside window frame. My office window is eleven stories up in Manhattan's famous Chanin Building, mind you…. Oh my god - don't look down!

Charlie calmly attaches a second clamp and sets to work, suspend high above the cars and buses furiously inching their way along 42nd street. He cleans the windows of all sixty stories of the Chanin Building. I try hard not to picture him doing this sixty stories up. The Chanin still has windows that open by sliding up and down, he explains. In other buildings, they’ve replaced these with new windows that flip in and out, the kind you can wash from the inside. Most buildings no longer need window washers with Charlie's formidable free-form suspension skills.

He thought about retiring to Florida with his wife. They went down for a week’s vacation, but ended up coming back two days early. "Nothing to do there. People walked around like this," he says, mimicking a sleepwalking zombie. So he's back where he belongs, hanging eleven stories above the streets of New York. He's the last strap hanging window-washer in the city. They asked around at the union, and no one else came forward. Inspired by Humans of New York, I had to capture this. See how he does it!

Scaffold Malfunctions In New York & Philadelphia

The FDNY said the two workers are window washers and their scaffold experienced a mechanical malfunction. The scaffolding is on the 17th floor and was tilting down. Rescue workers lowered down ropes and the two workers were secured.

First Responders Rescue Window Washers From Stuck Rig in Lower Manhattan: Two window washers who were stuck inside a scaffold dangling 15 stories above Lower Manhattan were rescued Tuesday morning by firefighters including one who rappelled down to them.

There were no indications of any injuries. The workers were wearing harnesses and additional gear was lowered to them by firefighters responding to the scene. The scaffold was hanging about 15 stories above the ground for approximately 20 minutes when the workers were brought in through a window at 33 Maiden Lane and Nassau Street. 

Broken glass fell from 1818 Market Street around lunchtime on Monday after a snapped wire broke windows in the building.

Snapped cable shatters glass in Center City high rise, closes Market Street sidewalk: Two blocks of sidewalk along Market Street were closed to foot traffic around noon on Monday after a cable on a window washer's scaffold broke and shattered windows in a Center City high rise building.

Glass fell to the ground in Center City Philadelphia after a cable broke on a high-rise scaffolding. It happened around 11 a.m. Monday at the Beneficial Bank building at 19th and Market streets. Officials tell us a gust of wind caught a power cord locking device and flung it into a 12th floor window. The glass shattered, sending most of the debris into an unoccupied office area. But a chunk of that glass did fall onto the roadway below.

Firefighters and police quickly converged on the scene and closed off that stretch of Market Street until the locking device was secured and the shattered glass was removed from the roadway. Of course, this is not the first time we've reported on debris falling from buildings in Philadelphia. Back in 2014, a 25 foot column came crashing down from the side of a parking garage at 19th and JFK Boulevard. And in 2009, debris tumbled from a building at 16th and Chestnut. No one was injured in either case, and fortunately the same can be said regarding Monday's incident.

NY Rescue.. Sort Of

Two window washers are stuck on a scaffold near the top of a Manhattan high-rise building in New York. The workers became trapped near the 62nd floor of the building at West 54th Street and Broadway. Firefighters later cut a hole in a glass window and safely removed the workers from the scaffold.

Firefighters Rescue Window Washers Trapped Outside 65th Floor of Manhattan High Rise: A pair of window washers were trapped on their rig more than 60 stories up outside a high-rise hotel in midtown Manhattan for more than an hour Tuesday afternoon, fire officials said. The washers were working outside Marriott's Courtyard New York Manhattan/Times Square hotel at Broadway and West 54th Street when they became stuck outside the 65th floor at about 1:30 p.m, officials said.

Firefighters were called to the scene and they were able to secure the workers with a rope. They then pulled them to safety at about 2:30 p.m. Video from the scene showed firefighters creating a hole in the window near the scaffolding. Several other firefighters could be seen on the roof of the skyscraper, and they were able to use ropes to pull the rig toward the window. The two workers were then pulled inside. 

Louis Merced, a scaffoldng mechanic who helped firefighters with the rescue described the demeanor of the window washers after the harrowing ordeal. "They came off the rig laughing, joking," Merced said. "To them it's not that serious either. They were not hurt."

Merced, who works for the company that manages the scaffolding, said that the men weren't in any real danger and that he had the scaffolding working again before firefighters cut out the window. An electrical issue was blamed for causing the scaffolding to get stuck. Several streets around the building were cordoned off as crews worked. 

Two workers were rescued Tuesday afternoon after their scaffold stalled outside a Midtown high-rise building. The workers, became stuck outside the 62nd floor of 1717 Broadway, between West 54th and 55th streets, when the scaffolding stopped working around 1:20 p.m. Firefighters said the scaffold was stabilized with fire department ropes, but since mechanics couldn't get the scaffolding moving again, the FDNY had to cut through a pane of glass in order bring the workers inside.

No injuries were reported, and the entire incident lasted just over an hour. Tom Dembinski, the workers' supervisor at Permasteelisa Group, said the pair was done for the day and on their way back up to the roof when the scaffolding stalled. "A malfunction on the scaffold," he said. "The scaffold shut down, and they were stuck out there...it's the nature of the beast."

The operator of the scaffold, however, criticized the FDNY response and called firefighters' actions unnecessary. "There was no need for the fire department at all," Louis Merced said. "This was overdone." He said the FDNY acted too quickly and that he already had the scaffold active again after a breaker problem caused the stall. "They were not in danger," he said. "It's not like the scaffold was falling. Nothing happened. There was no problem where they were in danger." There is no word on whether the conditions played any role in the malfunction.

High Rise Window Washers of Manhattan Video

The men who provided their perspectives on it for this film, lifelong New Yorkers John McDermott and John Wren, turned out to be both completely sane and highly safety-conscious.

High-Rise-Window Washers of Manhattan: High rise window washing, once among the most dangerous jobs in the world, has become extremely safe, statistically speaking. Still, the gig remains capable of producing Youtube clips to make you weak at the knees, most memorably a harrowing mishap at the top of a hundred-and-one-story building in Shanghai, and an equally unpleasant situation in Denver. Never mind that, miraculously, nobody died in either case; the profession’s few remaining dangers are so spectacular—and the fears they cause so primal—that, to the casual observer, it is still the province of daredevils and lunatics.

For me, the opportunity to explore such a world was irresistible, even if the men who provided their perspectives on it for this film, lifelong New Yorkers John McDermott and John Wren, turned out to be both completely sane and highly safety-conscious. (Though, by their own accounts, they may not have entered the profession that way, thirty years ago.) The result—based on a 2013 piece in these pages and the product of the hard work of various producers and cameramen—also led me to an uneasy realization: When these men began window washing three decades ago, it was an accepted premise of American life that, through unions and union membership, an aspiring musician (McDermott) and a young baseball player with a career-ending injury (Wren) could take blue-collar jobs and eventually be afforded, through hard work, a middle-class quality of life. Today, with unions under renewed attack, the biggest threat to window washers comes no longer from gods but from mere mortals.

$13.1375 Million To Window Cleaning Survivor

Alcides Moreno: Alcides, a window washer, was working when a malfunction caused the platform to send him and his brother Edgar down 47 stories.

'Antin Ehrlich & Epstein' Helps in Getting Amount of $13.1375 Million to Survivor Who Fell from Roof of Building (New York, NY): The lawyers of 'Antin Ehrlich & Epstein' have helped the survivor to get a claim of $13.1375 Million from the owner of the building. The worker fell from the 47th floor of the building due to the negligence in safety.

Antin Ehrlich &Epstein, a well-known law firm for accident and injury attorneys has helped a survivor who fell from the roof to get the amount of $13.1375 Million. The settlement was done by one of the NYC personal injury lawyers at Antin. Sources have confirmed that the survivor is the window washer. He was cleaning the widow of a 47 story building. Due to negligence in safety by the building owners and the scaffolding company for the worker, the survivor fell from the 47th floor of the building. Though, doctors were able to save the life of the window washer.

Speaking to the media, one of the lawyers of the law firm said, "This case was really important for us. We wanted that the survivor should get justice. Every life is precious. We had the complete evidence that the person fell from the building because of safety negligence."

The lawyers of 'Antin Ehrlich & Epstein' argued about the safety measures in the court and asked to settle the situation if the owner of the building pays the amount of $13.1375 Million to the survivor. The case was settled in New York. Also here.

A Client Talks

David Wright, founder and owner of Mr. Wright’s Window Cleaning LLC. A clients appraisal..

This guy bats a thousand at cleaning windows (by Jerry Zezima) - I do windows. Unfortunately, I do them every couple of years, which gives the windows plenty of time to get dirty, and even then it is clear that I don't do them very well because I have always considered the job a pane in the glass.

This year, I let a professional end my losing streak, which was, of course, in each window. Enter (through the front door, not a window) David Wright, owner of Mr. Wright's Window Cleaning of Centerport, N.Y.

Not to be confused with the New York Mets slugger of the same name ("He doesn't do windows as well as I do, but I can't hit a baseball as well as he can"), Wright was a lawyer, a financial analyst and a monk before devoting his life to letting the sunshine into the lives of others by cleaning their windows.

"I want to make people happy," Wright said. "And a lot of people are happy when their windows are clean."

I knew I would be happy if my windows were clean because it also would give happiness to my wife, Sue, who had been after me for the past two years to use Windex and a roll of paper towels, not to mention a little elbow grease, to clean the windows.

"Elbow grease is a prime source of smudges and streaks," I told her. Sue wasn't buying it, which is why I ended up buying a reasonably priced cleaning package (10 windows for $49) so she could finally meet Mr. Wright. "I'm David," he said, introducing himself to Sue. "I'm here to clean your windows." Sue swooned. "Thank you," she replied. "They could use it."

Wright started on the outside, where he told me that his wife, Joanne, likes the way he does the windows at their house but wishes he would do them more often. "I'm working seven days a week," he said, adding that he started the business last year and will be joined next year by his son Collier, a U.S. Army Ranger who is serving in Iraq. "So I don't have the time to do our windows too often."

"That excuse isn't going to work for me," I said. "You'll have to think of another one," Wright said as he used a water-fed pole with a nylon brush to clean the outside of the windows in the living, dining and family rooms. "Nylon?" I said. "Theoretically, I could clean windows with my wife's stockings."

"Theoretically," Wright responded, "it wouldn't be a good idea." What would be a good idea, he added, is to use resin instead of soap. "I'm using it now," he said. "It's much more effective."

As he worked, Wright, who is 53, told me that he started out as a lawyer ("If you go to the bathroom, bring work with you so you can bill your clients"), then got into financial services before giving up all his material possessions and spending time in a monastery, where he decided he wanted to make people happy for a living.

"I am doing my second-favorite thing," he said, referring to cleaning windows, which allows him to meditate while he works. "What's your favorite thing?" I inquired. "I'd like to be a professional poker player," Wright said. "But my wife doesn't think it's a safe bet."

When we moved inside, Wright said that customers always kid him about having the same name as the Mets star. "They'll say, 'When you finish with my windows, are you going to Citi Field?' Maybe I should give them my autograph," said Wright, who cleaned the windows with a long razor blade encased in a scraper. He also used a squeegee and a scrubber made of lamb's wool and AstroTurf.

"And I use Dawn," he said. "Who's she?" I asked. "The person you can get to clean your windows," said Wright, though he really meant the dishwashing liquid. "Don't tell your wife, but most windows are dirtier on the inside than they are on the outside."

I didn't tell Sue, who was nonetheless amazed when Wright was finished. "Wow!" she squealed. "These windows have never been so clean." "The trick," Wright said, "is to keep them that way." "I'll do my part," I said. "In two years, I'll give you another call."

I’m David Wright, founder and owner of Mr. Wright’s Window Cleaning LLC. We provide professional, hand washed window cleaning services to fine homes and businesses in New York’s Nassau and Suffolk Counties, particularly in the North Shore (“Gold Coast”) area of Long Island.

People often ask me when I’m on a job how long I’ve been cleaning windows. I actually started cleaning windows over 25 years ago to put myself through Indiana Law School. I was raising my family at the time- both my sons were born while I was in Law School. When I graduated, I practiced corporate law in a leading large law firm before eventually becoming an in-house executive and Chief Legal Officer for a financial service firm client. Eventually I started my own financial service firm, which quickly grew into a national company. After the sale of that company, I started a few more ventures before semi-retiring for a number of years. In 2014, my wife and I decided to downsize our home when the last of our combined 6 kids were either married or in college. We sold the home in Manhasset and moved further east to Centerport.

I spent February and March of 2014 developing lists of various business ventures I could pursue. The list was quite long, and, surprisingly, window cleaning was my second choice. Of all the jobs and businesses I’ve had in the past, I enjoyed window cleaning the most. Being in a position to do almost anything I wanted, I chose to do the thing that most appealed to me. When I tell my customers this story, they always want to know what was first on my list of potential things I wanted to do. Actually, it was to become a professional poker player, but my priest advised me that my second choice might be better for me!

I’m building this business now with the intention of having my oldest son join me in it in 2016. Right now he is serving in the US Army, currently deployed throughout most of 2015 in Iraq. When he moves back to Long Island with his wife and my grandson, we intend to grow the business together into the most successful window cleaning and home service company on Long Island.

No other window cleaner on Long Island provides the old fashioned service at a price you can afford like our window cleaning system. Our window cleaners will meticulously clean your windows inside and out using advanced squeegee window techniques and sophisticated water fed pole technology and tools. If I am not doing the service myself, then I am personally supervising another of our window cleaning professionals, all of whom have been trained in our window cleaning system.

1 World Trade Centre Opens For Business

1 World Trade Centre Opens For Business 13 Years After 9/11

1 World Trade Centre Opens For Business 13 Years After 9/11 (NEW YORK): More than 13 years after the Twin Towers toppled, the central building constructed as their replacement finally opened for business on Monday, with workers moving into 1 World Trade Centre. Publisher Condé Nast, which includes titles such as Vanity Fair and Vogue, has moved 175 employees into the building, with the company occupying floors 20 to 44.  Ultimately, Condé Nast will move around 3,400 members of staff to the site in Lower Manhattan, migrating employees from their current Times Square headquarters to 1 World Trade Centre by early next year. Condé Nast spokeswoman Patti Rockenwagner told the New York Post: “Condé Nast is proud to be a part of this important moment of renewal for the city of New York.”

The tower, which is the largest in the western hemisphere, stands 1776-feet tall - the height represents the year of United States independence - and boasts a observation deck on its 102 floor, though this won’t be open to tenants until mid next year. The tower, which costs nearly $4 billion to construct and has 3.5 million square feet of space, was originally scheduled to open in 2006, however the project suffered serious delays over financing and design. Around 60% of the building’s office space has currently been leased, with other tenants including the US Army Corps of Engineers and US Customs and Border Protection.

New York's Number One: At 1,776 feet tall, One World Trade Center  is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. Developed by The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, this building sets new standards of design, construction, and prestige, and heralds the renaissance of Downtown Manhattan. Managed, operated and leased by The Durst Organization, One World Trade Center is the new icon of New York's skyline and the most recognized and desirable office address in the world.

One World Trade Center (also 1 World Trade Center or 1 WTC; the current building was dubbed the Freedom Tower during initial basework) is the name of two buildings. It most commonly refers to the primary building of the new World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City, and the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere. The 94-story super tall structure, which shares a name with the northern Twin Tower in the original World Trade Center that was destroyed in the September 11 attacks, stands on the northwest corner of the 16-acre (6.5 ha) World Trade Center site.

The old majestic Twin Towers that became synonymous with the romance, brashness, prosperity, glamour and raw energy of New York City were once the tallest buildings in the world. Designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki, they opened standing at 110 stories in 1973 and were both loved and loathed, depending on who you asked. Here are two window washers cleaning in a cradle.

How a Squeegee Handle Became a Life-Saving Tool on September 11, 2001

Window washer Jan Demczur used his squeegee to pry open the elevator doors where he and five others were trapped. Taking turns, they used the squeegee and its metal handle to hack through drywall so that they could squeeze through and escape down the stairs. (National Museum of American History)

How a Squeegee Handle Became a Life-Saving Tool on September 11, 2001 - On September 11, 2001, window washer Jan Demczur was ascending One World Trade Center in the elevator with five other men. When the car came to a sudden halt and then started plunging downward, someone in the cab managed to press the emergency stop button. The elevator cab mercifully stopped, but the men smelled smoke and knew they had to find a way out.

The events of what happened next, as told to Smithsonian magazine writer Victoria Dawson for her July 2002 article “Handed Down to History,” include a harrowing escape from the elevator after the men pried open the doors, only to be faced with a wall of Sheetrock. Fortunately, someone had a pocketknife and the men began cutting their way out. But to break through the three-quarter inch thick layers, Demczur recalled, “was going to be hard.” Still, the men persevered.

‘We just started working. Focused on this way to get out. We knew we had only one chance.’

And then, that one chance—that blade—slipped out of Demczur’s hands, falling right down the elevator shaft. “I was very upset with myself. We had a problem and now a bigger problem.” A man standing next to Demczur reached into the window washer’s bucket and seized the Squeegee handle. One more chance.

Squeegee handle underside: A coating of white drywall debris is still visible on the underside of the squeegee handle Jan Demczur used to dig a hole through a wall in his escape from the World Trade Center.

They returned to the wall, systematically cutting furrows, both vertical and horizontal, creating at last a sizable depression in the first two layers of Sheetrock—some 18 by 20 inches in size. ‘We didn’t know what was going on [in the building], but we knew time was running out,” Demczur said. They kicked and kicked again, breaking through the triple layer of Sheetrock only to find. . .still more Sheetrock. Mercifully, it was a single layer, three-quarters of an inch thick. Easily punched through. Finally, they pushed against a tile wall and found themselves underneath a sink in a men’s room.

The six men escaped the building. It took them 90 minutes from the moment the elevator cab had halted in the shaft, but they reached safety only minutes before the tower collapsed—the second tower to do so. The tool that saved their lives, the Squeegee handle, joined the collections of the National Museum of American History in 2002 when Congress designated the museum as the official repository for materials honoring the victims of the September 11 attacks, when 2,996 were killed at the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Virginia and aboard Flight 93 when it crashed in a field outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

This week, the museum announced that the Squeegee handle along with 26 other artifacts from the museum’s collections are on view at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. Director John Gray noted that the 14 items from the World Trade Center, the eight from the Pentagon and the five from Shanksville, Pennsylvania, "tell the story in ways that words cannot."

Read more from a previous blog here. (+ video)

Uniform donation: Jan Demczur poses with his uniform and squeegee handle as he donates them to the National Museum of American History.

Window Cleaners Getting In The Christmas Spirit

Window cleaners pledge to donate Christmas tips.

Amersham window cleaners pledge to donate Christmas tips: A father and son window cleaning duo are putting other people’s generosity to good use by donating all of their Christmas tips to charity. Terry Gurr and his son Aaron of Amersham based Highflow Services decided to donate every penny of the money from happy customers to children’s charity Beat Bullying. And the squeegee-toting pair are also giving away all of the wines, chocolates and other goodies received on their rounds at a charity tombola in Old Amersham Memorial Gardens this Saturday as part of the town’s Christmas celebrations.

Terry said: “My son just turned round to me recently and said he was going to give away all his tips this Christmas, so we both decided to do it and give them to charity. “Both my wife and I have experienced bullying in the past and it’s a great cause for it to go to. “We want to encourage people to donate items to the tombola so we can raise as much money as possible.” To donate an item for Terry and Aaron’s tombola at this weekend’s Christmas celebrations in Old Amersham, pop in to Bojangles Cafe on Hill Avenue, which is taking donations.

How about a heartwarming picture on a cold Indianapolis day? Elves were cleaning the windows on Thursday at Riley Hospital for Children.

Elves Drop In on Riley Patients: Little patients at Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health got a holiday treat as Santa's Elves rappelled down the windows of the Simon Family Tower Thursday morning stopping to wave at patients on every floor.

American National Skyline, Inc. spread the elf love.

Father and son window cleaning rivals help Boston flood victims: Father and son window cleaning rivals David and Andrew Willis came together to help flood hit properties in Boston. The pair – of Washforce and Clean 143 respectively – were able to clear the standing water from the offices of the Boston Standard as well as many other businesses in the area. In the video above the pair explain their role in the volunteer clear up effort.

The rise of loneliness in 21st century Britain: Christmas can be the loneliest time of the year for older people and those living on their own. But loneliness is a growing problem all year round, not just during the festive season. Huddersfield has a number of initiatives, including luncheon and over-sixties clubs; church groups; the OWLS weekday leisure club; and the University of the Third Age. And the work of the Community Church continues all year, with befriending groups for everyone from mother and toddlers and refugees to older people and vulnerable adults.

The church has to fundraise to run the groups, which are mostly free, and the annual Christmas lunch alone costs over £1,000.  This year it was supported financially by a number of local organisations and individuals, including a firm of window cleaners, a 92-year-old well-wisher who sent a cheque for £500 and a bereaved family who asked for contributions instead of funereal flowers. “I think it’s wonderful that it has been supported by the wider community and we have so many volunteers who come together on the day,” said Charlene.  “It makes it more special somehow.”

The Queen said it first in 2008 when she awarded John Lewis with a Royal Warrant as “suppliers of haberdashery and household goods”. This window display is a feet of engineering genius. This utterly inclusive window unveils nothing less than a hoover reindeer, a chesterfield-slash-picnic-hamper grizzly bear, towelling turkeys, crockery squirrels, cutlery parrots, and a very lovely cleaning utensil bunny rabbit.

Window Wonderland - a look at Christmas window displays from John Lewis, Harrods, Selfridges and more: Georgia Barretta-Whiteley, head of design at shopper marketing agency Saatchi & Saatchi X, casts her eye over the Christmas window displays of London’s biggest retailers. At time of writing, the Christmas season is well (but not truly) upon us. Only in retail land has its glistening, cinnamon-tasting, sprayfrosted, white fur-lined grip really taken hold. The capital’s shopping districts now have their main arteries blocked by rubber-neckers from all over, walking into lamp posts, stepping backwards into traffic and spilling noxious toffeenut latte over oncoming, equally-as-distracted pedestrians. The Christmas store window extravaganza has begun, and what follows is an attempt to quantify the magic of the top seven heavy-hitters in central London. 

Store; Harrods - When a store has a mission statement that declares; ‘…through a combination of product, innovation and eccentricity, we aim to provide every customer with a truly unforgettable experience in our quintessentially British environment…’ my expectations for what lay behind the Harrods Christmas glazing are high. Upon approach and judging by the elbowed jostle, this appeared a high real-estate piece ‘o’ pavement. And it was in fact sensational. To stroll from one end to the other is to leap between the carriages of the ‘Harrods Christmas Express’.

Store; Harvey Nichols - The boisterous hijinks exploding from the excesses of the Harvey Nicks window scene currently unfolding in Knightsbridge makes it seem as though our otherwise conscientious elves are throwing an X-rated delivery day after-party of thumping proportions somewhere inside the store. The hyped-up, brassy still-life set-ups seem to regard anything expected as simply a common affectation. It’s all here, whooping and hollering out at you, challenging you not to be impressed.

Store; Selfridges - Mr Selfridge understood that to make customers spend, you have to capture their imagination. A hundred years ago when he casually mentioned to the team that: “…the whole art of merchandising consists of appealing to the imagination. Once the imagination is moved, the hand goes naturally to the pocket”, I’m not sure if he realised that the ramifications of such a principle would be playing out as wonderfully as they currently are behind his set of panes this Christmas. It’s all a bit ‘Gulliver’s Travels’.

Store; Fortnum and Mason - Fortnum’s at Christmas, and the anticipation of that approach, has a lot to live up to given the standard of those windows at any other time of year. I have to say, in the end, my Christmas spirit was left a little damp. Christmassy ‘stuff’ framed all gold-gilded, cherubs, a melancholy Victorian Santa Claus, chocolate box dusty miniatures of families tucking into Christmas morning excess. One window even boasts a turkey-eating scene. Eww.

USA Christmas 2013 window displays. Above; Macy's in New York. Click to enlarge.

Opening windows: Midtown stores add a touch of glass for holidays - 'Tis the season for window shopping, and spirits aren't the only thing the city's world-famous storefronts are making bright. Above Macy's (Don't miss) An enormous crystal tree in a forest of jewel-encrusted deer, foxes and other woodland creatures, or the LED spider web that transforms into a perfect snowflake. Check out the touch-screen snowflakes in the interactive window, which become fairies or shatter animated icicles at the tap of a finger.

Lord & Taylor - What's new: These windows are a flurry of activity, from spinning puppets to cardboard panels that slide back and forth like the "Monty Python" intro. Click to enlarge.

Store: Henri Bendel - "That looks like a fun table!" says Bendel's visual VP, Gilberto Santana. "It would be a great party." Click to enlarge.

Store: Bloomingdale's  Don't miss: The "Good cheer from China!" display has it all -- a dragon with shimmering scales and fuzzy pandas pedaling on bikes. The Big Apple window proves there’s no place like home for the holidays, with an adorable brown bear balancing packages before shining icons like Lady Liberty and the Chrysler Building. Click to enlarge.

Store: Bergdorf Goodman  - What's new: Imagine Christmas in July. No, really. These windows show a white Valentine’s Day, with a frosted boudoir brimming with bouquets of flowers and cakes, and a chilly April Fool's Day display that turns the holiday -- and one stunning Alexander McQueen gown -- upside down. Click to enlarge.

Lord of Leviathan • Nicole Cantú • $8,000

Gift Guide: 'Hellraiser' Stained Glass Window - A handmade, 3D stained glass window of Pinhead from Hellraiser. Amazing, right? Designed by Nicole Cantu for the Guzu Gallery in Austin, Texas, it's big, it's bold, and it's expensive. I want it. Is it wrong that I want to replace a regular stained glass church window with this one, just to see what happens? I have seen some of those religious windows - Pinhead is way tame compared to a lot of them. Sadly the stained glass window is only available for local pickup. Maybe a road trip is in order? $8,000 from Guzu Gallery.

Working At Height & Wind Speed

Skyscrapers like One World Trade Center, now the tallest building in the United States, are not the place to be during hurricanes.

Sandy spared New York’s skyscrapers, but high-rises carry high risk during hurricanes: On Oct. 28, 2012, the day before Superstorm Sandy’s center came ashore over southern New Jersey, the National Weather Service’s New York City office cautioned that one of its computer models was projecting a “possibility of skyscraper window damage” and warned residents to stay away from windows if they lived on the 10th floor or higher.

Fortunately Sandy’s strongest winds had weakened to 70 mph when it came ashore near Brigantine, N.J., the next day. The strongest wind recorded at the NWS Central Park station that day was 38 mph with gusts to 62 mph. In Atlantic City, N.J., however, where the highest reported surface wind was 51 mph with gusts to 64 mph, Sandy did cause minor damage to high-rise building roofs and higher floors. “The problem I saw in New York, especially lower Manhattan, was when the power went out and back-up generators were in flooded basements,” says Tim P. Marshall, a meteorologist and engineer who’s been studying building wind damage for Haag Engineering in Dallas since 1983. “If you’re on the 40th floor, that’s a long way to walk down the stairs.”

Even if you think trudging up and down several stories in a high-rise without elevators is a good way to get in shape, you should evacuate a high-rise condo, apartment, hotel or time share that’s threatened by a hurricane because it’s a potentially deadly place to be. At the very least you should take the following advice from the New York City Office of Emergency Management (and other emergency managers):

On or below the 10th floor: Close and lock all windows and securely cover them to reduce damage and injury caused by flying debris. Above the 10th floor: Be prepared to take shelter on or below the 10th floor.  If you have a balcony or rooftop, remove all items that cannot be securely tied down.

Mean hurricane eyewall wind variation with elevation. To calculate the wind speed at a particular height, put a decimal point after the first ’1′ in the percentage and multiply the surface wind by that number. For example, if the wind at the surface is 80 mph, for the speed at the 20th floor multiply 80 by 1.15.

In the article they say: “The top of a 25-story coastal high-rise in the hurricane eyewall will experience a mean wind that is about 17% higher (or one Saffir–Simpson hurricane-scale category higher) than the surface or advisory value. For this reason, residents who must take refuge in coastal high-rises should generally do so at the lowest levels necessary to avoid storm surge.”

Their study was based in part on data from GPS dropwindsondes that hurricane hunter airplanes had been using since 1998. These are small packages of instruments that measure and radio back atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, and wind speed and direction as they fall to the ocean under small parachutes.

Marshall says that buildings “up north, seem to be better built” than many he’s examined across the South. Windows are only one of the problems. Once debris breaks a window the flying glass can break other windows, as he and his colleagues found after Hurricane Alicia hit Galveston and Houston on Aug. 18, 1982 (less than three weeks after he started with Haag Engineering) showering downtown Houston with flying glass.

“The problem is with EIFS clad (Exterior Insulation Finishing System) buildings in the South. I have seen this type of façade get into trouble many times from many hurricanes. There also have been problems with keeping windows intact. Part of the problem is flying debris and the cascade or domino effect when one window breaks and so on.” All in all, an upper floor in a high-rise is no place to be in a hurricane.