Awful news yesterday, of course: An AC unit fell six stories from an apartment window, bouncing off an awning below and striking a 67-year-old man on Second Avenue.
While reading through the retweets about this story on Twitter, a theme quickly emerged: Many people said that getting hit in the head by a falling AC was their worst fear/nightmare. Well, sure — why not?
Life always hangs in the balance, particularly in an urban environment. So there's always something to put the fear in us, often driven by the media ... getting mugged ... worrying about terrorism ... falling cranes... exploding manhole covers... finding bedbugs... seeing your new neighbor move in with a drumkit...
As for falling objects, well, in a bit of gallows humor, I told @Eden_Brower that yesterday's incident took my mind off thinking about cars hurtling out of parking garages and landing on me. For awhile, anyway.
Perhaps this is a good reminder ... maybe you want to walk on the other side of Ninth Street where the parking garage is between Third Avenue and Second Avenue....
4 comments:
Good god, I have never noticed this and I walk by there almost every day. Most of the time it's on the north side of the street but from now on it will ALWAYS be on the north side. Yet another thing to worry about while walking down the street.
A lot of A/C units aren't tightly secured in their window (including mine).
What I do is have the window up with the unit in it and then a board going from the top of the open pane to the top of the window itself so the window cannot be open any further and the a/c won't fall out. I realize this isn't the best strategy, but I simply don't have the know how & tools to secure it better.
That picture gives me the heebie jeebies something fierce! I''m never walking down that street again!
I hope that Winebar stayed closed the next few days out of basic human decency and as a memorial to the guy who got injured.
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