Everywhere you looked, glass-walled luxury apartments were springing up around New York like so many unwanted genital warts in Bloomberg’s New York. And while we could hope that Bill de Blasio would be the kind of guy to seize One57 and turn it into a luxury homeless shelter, he’s probably not going to do that. But at least we can be content with knowing that the rich will be sweating when de Blasio forgets to pay New York’s utility bills, since a new study says that those great glass views become great glass ovens when the power goes out.
The study, looked at by the Wall Street Journal today, was put together by the Urban Green Council at request of New York. It wasn’t looking into whether we’d be able to trap the rich in their glass-walled towers, but rather how New York could effectively build things in a post-Sandy world. It concluded that, based on last year’s temperatures, an all-glass apartment would be over 100 degrees without air conditioning. Do swanksters like Bikram? Humble brick low rises are looking better all the time.