Man Scales NYT Buillding To Post Ad
So I’m cruising up 8th ave. on my way to Advertising 2.0 (where I am writing this from) when I saw a huge group of people milling around the street in front of the New York Times building (which is brand new and really swanky).
I’ve been watching its construction since last summer when I started driving by it everyday. Surrounding the building are what looks like thousands of halogen tube lights, like the ones in a crappy office with bad lighting.
In reality, the bulb looking things are actually ceramic tubes which are:
intended to allow light while keeping the building energy-efficient.
OK so the reason for the crowd was a “publicity stunt” performed by French stuntman Alain Robert, who scaled the building to post a huge banner that read:
“Global warming kills more people than 9/11 every week.”
From the New York Times blog:
“The man later confirmed, moments after being arrested on the roof of the tower, that he was Alain Robert, a 46-year-old stuntman famous for scaling structures like the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, the Sydney Opera House in Australia and the Eiffel Tower and Montparnasse Tower in Paris. He wore a T-shirt with his name and the address of a Web site (thesolutionissimple.org), exercise pants and climbing shoes. He had long blond hair. He used no rope, harness or parachute.”
A security guard commented that the building isn’t really that difficult to climb since it is set up like a ladder. But trust me, the dude was really, really high up. Cool stuff, keep it up Alain. Just be safe.
Update: NY1 reports that the stunt was to bring awareness to world environmental day.
Update: A copycat later climbed the building.