This archive report was first published on 24 December 2019.
Published on December 24, 2019, a chilling incident highlighted the dangers of falling ice in New York City's glass towers. Fortunately, Mr. Nadler, a 20-year-old, was not inside his car when it was totaled.
"I would have been traumatized for life," Mr. Nadler said, reflecting on the close call. "It would have totally killed some people."
According to Frank Moscatelli, a clinical professor of physics at New York University, ice can reach speeds of up to 70 miles per hour when falling from a 15-floor building. This is due to terminal velocity, the maximum speed of a freely falling object.
However, the impact of falling ice depends on its size. "When the object hits you at, say, 64 m.p.h., it matters if it's a penny or a brick," Professor Moscatelli explained.
On February 4, 1994, Jill Gardenfeld, a 24-year-old advertising analyst, was nearly killed by a 2-foot-wide ice slab that fell 21 stories from a building in Herald Square. She survived but spent two months in the hospital, underwent 14 operations, and received 114 units of blood.
More recently, in 2014, frozen piles of ice and snow broke off 1 World Trade Center and plummeted over 1,000 feet onto the busy walkways below, forcing the closure of an entrance to the PATH train station.
