I was quoted By JOHN CICHOWSKI, ROAD WARRIOR COLUMNIST, in the Bergen Record, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2013, Road Warrior: New Fort Lee high-rise blinds drivers. His article is about glare, and starts off as follows, "As they move through Fort Lee, eastbound drivers approaching the George Washington Bridge just before sundown can’t help but bathe uncomfortably in the intense glow of the dazzling glass tower that’s slowly reaching into the sky...."
He liked what I brought to his attention, having by chance read the news about a London tower a few weeks earlier ("...the owner of a luxury Jaguar XJ, said Monday the blistering beam of light melted the panels on his car in just one hour."):
"Glare, shmare!" said Teaneck’s Tzvee Zahavy. "In London, the reflected sun off the new Walkie Talkie skyscraper is so hot that it melts cars and fries eggs."
True enough. British media reports said extensive glazing was used on the sweeping curvature of the 37-story London building to maximize its views. As a result, the sun’s rays were magnified so much that they warped the panels of at least two parked cars — a Jaguar and a van. Witnesses said the damage was accompanied by the smell of burning plastic.
"Every bit of plastic on the left-hand side and everything on the dashboard has melted," said the van owner.
But none of the reflected sunlight from The Modern in Fort Lee approaches the hideous intensity of the Walkie Talkie in London, where the sun in early fall beats directly on the building for two hours or more. The glare from the high-rise on the Jersey side of the Hudson generally lasts several minutes at most.
And unlike the enormous engineering challenges posed by the Walkie Talkie, the Fort Lee mayor believes The Modern may one day elude the sun’s rays altogether.
"This is only the first building being built for this project," Sokolich noted. "There’s more to come, so I think the sun won’t get through."...
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