News
We Survived Earthquakepocalypse!
August 24, 2011
| Mother Nature sure knows how to shake us out of our 2pm slump. Luckily, there were no reports of significant damage or injuries in New York City and surrounding areas after the earthquake in Virginia. |
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| Some buildings, like City Hall, were evacuated, while other buildings’ tenants rushed to street level to find out what was going on. I’m Too Young for This! Cancer Foundation’s Kenny Kane, a tenant at 40 Worth St, sent us this photo taken outside of his building. (Or perhaps they were just calling home to discuss the building’s newest tenant, The Innocence Project, which signed a long-term, 20k SF lease there last week, joining The Gap’s 265k SF New York offices.) |
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| And here was the scene outside of 1221 Avenue of the Americas, snapped by Reis economist Victor Calanog. (The quake conveniently evaded his forecasts.) No need to panic if you’re in a newer building. Thornton Tomasetti structural engineer Robert Otani tells us the building codes in NYC and DC are already some of the highest standards in the world. The current NYC code is based on the “maximum considered earthquake”—or calculated to withstand the worst earthquake in 2,500 years. The biggest challenge: the substantial number of buildings in NYC that have not been designed to be earthquake resistant. As the buildings get older and materials deteriorate over time, “the problem doesn’t get any better, it gets worse,” he says. Robert's part of a committee that’s trying to find ways to make older buildings earthquake-safe. Often the best solution is to tear down structurally unsound buildings, “but that’s pretty much impossible.” So he’s still searching for minimally evasive solutions. |
