> New York’s climate is pretty harsh: you have annual freeze/thaw cycles, lots of rain and ice, plus high winds and an annual hurricane season. In terms of fre

> New York’s climate is pretty harsh: you have annual freeze/thaw cycles, lots of rain and ice, plus high winds and an annual hurricane season. In terms of freeze/thaw cycles, it's not really about having annual cycles that makes a climate harsh, but rather having persistent daily cycles. A climate where the winter daily high sits comfortably above freezing and the winter daily low sits comfortably below freezing is going to be much harsher on buildings than one where the weather goes below freezing in fall and stays below freezing all winter--you're seeing like 10× the freeze/thaw cycles per year. Between climate change and urban heat island effect, Manhattan is probably moving into the winter-daily-freeze/thaw-cycle climate zone.