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Thursday, January 19, 2006
Another Reason To Dislike Glass Towers
It's bad enough that Manhattan is turning into Houston-on-the-Hudson. And that the average glass tower is boringly,mechanically repetitive and scaleless. Now we find out that 100 million to 1 billion birds die in the US every year when they fly into windows, and that when research was done at a single building in Chicago, the McCormick Place Convention Center, they found 13,000 birds per decade die when they fly into the building's glass facade.
January 19, 2006 in Architecture, Urbanism | Permalink
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» Habeas corpus from City Comforts, the blog
I've heard about birds flying into buildings and dying and take it seriously: ...ornithologist Daniel Klem of Muhlenberg College, in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Between 100 million and 1 billion birds die in glass collisions every year in North America al... [Read More]
Tracked on Jan 21, 2006 8:10:38 PM
» Habeas corpus from City Comforts, the blog
I've heard about birds flying into buildings and dying and take it seriously: ...ornithologist Daniel Klem of Muhlenberg College, in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Between 100 million and 1 billion birds die in glass collisions every year in North America al... [Read More]
Tracked on Jan 22, 2006 12:34:39 PM
Comments
I've heard about this phenomenon and have taken it as credible.
But why do we not see the dead birds on city sidewalks? With so many dead, I would expect to see some.
Have you ever seen any? Even one? I can't remember seeing any.
Posted by: David Sucher at Jan 19, 2006 9:48:42 AM
Rats quickly eat them!
Posted by: morty at Jan 22, 2006 6:02:45 PM
Last fall I happened to be at the north end of Millennium Park in Chicago--just south of a cluster of highrise glass boxes--waiting for rosy-fingered dawn to peek over the lake and bathe the historic Michigan Avenue streetwall in pink light.
While I waited for sunrise, I wandered around the area, and at the base of one the buildings, I met a maintenance man whose first job each morning was picking up the dead birds befor the tourists and office workers arrived. He must have had 4 or 5 birds in his trash bag, and he told me it was a light day.
Posted by: archipalooza at Jan 26, 2006 5:40:27 PM
