There is an “unhealthy correlation” between the building of skyscrapers and subsequent financial crashes, according to Barclays Capital.

Read more from the original source:
Skyscrapers ‘precede every crash’

A rare glimpse of the Empire State Building’s balance sheet illustrates how observatories have become moneymakers for tall office buildings.

Original post:
Empire State Building Observation Decks Generate Startling Profits

Washington might be a small town, but sometimes it feels downright tiny. Take, for instance, the new neighbors — on diametrically opposite sides of the political spectrum — who nevertheless found themselves in cozy quarters in the same office building on 15th Street NW. The Natural Resources Defense Council–the greeny environmental group– had been ensconced on the third floor of the building for a few months when a new tenant arrived. The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity had moved into a suite only a floor above the green group’s space. Read full article > >

View post:
Enviros, clean-coal advocates make strange bedfellows

KOLKATA, India — Medical staff at an Indian hospital abandoned their patients and fled for safety early Friday as fire and smoke poured through the building, leaving 73 people dead, many from smoke inhalation, officials said. As rescuers scrambled to evacuate survivors, police filed a case against the hospital in the eastern city of Kolkata for violating safety procedures. Top government officials vowed to hold the hospital accountable for the tragedy, and began proceedings to cancel its license. Read full article > >

Continued here:
Medical staff at Indian hospital abandons patients as fire rages, killing 73

Bombs made from ordinary fertilizer were used to destroy the federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 and to damage the World Trade Center in 1993.

Read more:
New Factory to Make Fertilizer That Is Less Useful in Creating Bombs

Lakia McDuffie was sleeping in her fourth-floor apartment at Wingate Towers & Gardens in Southwest Washington when a light flooding into her bedroom woke her up. Then her windows rattled. She wondered what was going on. It was a plane landing at Reagan National Airport . Since that night in the spring, incoming airliners have regularly flown by her building at late hours, McDuffie said. Read full article > >

Excerpt from:
D.C. communities all shook up as Reagan National-bound planes change their landing patterns

“Unbuilt Washington” is the National Building Museum’s best chance at drawing blockbuster crowds in years. Devoted to the might-have-beens in the wastebasket of Washington’s design history, it begins with variations on the basic city plan laid out by Pierre L’Enfant in 1791 and ends with a spectacular sculptural bridge the museum would like to construct in the enormous atrium of the Pension Building. Read full article > >

Read more:
Critic’s review of ‘Unbuilt Washington’ at the National Building Museum

TEHRAN — Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday denounced allegations by the United States of an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, suggesting they were a pretext for further building an international consensus against Iran, state media reported . “They attempted to find an excuse by raising a meaningless and useless accusation against some Iranian nationals in America,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, speaking in the western province of Kermanshah, where he is on a 10-day official visit. Read full article > >

See the original post here:
Iran supreme leader: U.S. allegations of plot to kill Saudi envoy ‘meaningless’

Information is available to homeowners who are wondering if the building going up next door is going to become a window-darkening neighbor.

Link:
Is That a Bulldozer I Hear?

Three Fridays ago, indecipherable hieroglyphics littered the whiteboards that cover the walls of the defensive meeting room at Redskins Park, non sequiturs scattered everywhere – “gold” and “rip” and “liz” and “lamb.” The season hadn’t yet started. All this apparent confusion — 21 different coverages and 38 different blitzes, and that’s just in the Washington Redskins ’ “sub” package, used mostly on third downs — had to be drilled and distilled by all 25 defensive players, from 14-year veteran London Fletcher to one rookie, a starter from the day he walked in the building. Never mind that he wasn’t a month past his 23rd birthday. Read full article > >

Original post:
Redskins’ Ryan Kerrigan navigates the complexities of the modern NFL

Some residents of the Villa Charlotte Bronte in the Bronx who were exiled during Tropical Storm Irene are being told they cannot move back until they prove the building rests on solid ground.

Originally posted here:
At Bronx Building, Tropical Storm Irene’s Effects Linger

CAIRO — Israel sought U.S. protection for its embassy here early Saturday, hours after thousands of Egyptian protesters besieged the building, with several managing to gain entry and fling Hebrew-language documents from a balcony. Protesters knocked down a 12-foot concrete wall that had been built last week to protect the embassy, which is near the top floor of a 21-story residential building in the upscale Dokki neighborhood. At least two protesters scaled the front of the building to pull down the Israeli flag, hanging from the 20th floor. It was the second time in recent weeks that demonstrators had removed the flag. Read full article > >

More here:
Israel asks U.S. to help protect embassy in Cairo after protesters attack building

ABUJA, Nigeria — Two top U.N. officials offered conflicting views Sunday on the safety of its Nigeria headquarters after a suicide car bombing there, as the world body paused to mourn the 23 people killed in the attack claimed by a radical Muslim sect. U.N. security chief Gregory Starr acknowledged that safety features “could have been better” to stop the speeding sedan loaded with explosives. But only hours later, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro told journalists that the building had “really, really tight” security. Read full article > >

Read the rest here:
Safety of UN headquarters in Nigeria in question after suicide car bombing that killed 23

MEXICO CITY — At least 53 people were killed Thursday, officials said, when a northern Mexico casino was attacked by men who fired off guns and ignited drapes, rugs and furniture. Some witnesses reported that the attackers threw grenades into the Casino Royale in Monterrey, while others said gasoline bombs started the fire. The flames trapped customers and staff in the building. A survivor told the Mexico City newspaper Reforma that many of the dead were crushed to death in a stampede for the emergency exits. Read full article > >

See more here:
Mexico casino attack leaves at least 53 dead

For decades, musicians have used a dank basement on the Lower East Side as a rehearsal studio. Now, the building has been cited for violations, and they are being evicted.

Go here to see the original:
The Last Jam Session