Why Is New York Wearing Scaffolding?
One thing I noticed almost immediately in New York:
The city seems to be wearing scaffolding. 😄
Not just one building.
Not just one street.
Scaffolding everywhere.
Beautiful old buildings.
Grand facades.
Modern towers.
And quite a few of them hiding behind metal pipes and wooden platforms.
At first, I wondered:
Is New York permanently under construction? 😄
Then I discovered there is actually a reason for much of it.
New York requires the facades of buildings over six stories to be inspected regularly. If repairs are needed, scaffolding or a sidewalk shed may go up while the work is being done.
So what I had been seeing as “New York construction” was, quite often, New York taking care of itself.
And that made me look at the buildings a little differently.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the Middle East, where cities like Dubai have grown into spectacular modern skylines in just a few decades.
But standing here in New York, I had another thought.
New York was building skyscrapers long before the Middle East began creating the spectacular skylines we know today.
Perhaps that’s why the scaffolding doesn’t just make me think of construction.
It makes me think of age.
A city that has been building, rebuilding and reinventing itself for generations.
And life simply carries on underneath it all.
People walk.
Traffic moves.
Shows go on.
Even Broadway doesn’t seem to mind.
Behind all that scaffolding are people doing the less glamorous work of keeping a very glamorous city standing.
Perhaps cities are a little like people.
They may look impressive from the outside.
But they need checking, repairing and taking care of too.
Even New York needs maintenance.
And apparently, quite a lot of scaffolding. 😄
