Last year I was working in Midtown, Manhattan. It was a normal day just like any other, except when I arrived at my desk there were tens of shocked colleagues l

Last year I was working in Midtown, Manhattan. It was a normal day just like any other, except when I arrived at my desk there were tens of shocked colleagues looking down to the street below. It transpired that a piece of the facade on the old, brick walled building opposite had somehow dislodged, fell, and ended someone's life who was walking by. Her body remained there during the day because it was too dangerous to remove it. For obvious reasons, this was traumatic. My instinct tells me NYC will not suffer from the mass abandonment that the article refers to, but it needs a tremendous investment to avoid further rot. Modern skyscrapers are a bandaid over the scores of ill fated and fragile buildings and infrastructure NYC is home to.