Gresham-made windows featured in death-defying New York rescue

When New York City emergency crews rescued two window cleaners dangling from broken scaffolding last week, some in Gresham took note.

Rescue workers had to cut through the glass wall of the 68th floor of One World Trade Center to bring the two men to safety. Thirteen thousand of those windows had been assembled and glazed at the Benson Industries Inc. factory on Northeast Halsey Street and Northeast 181st Avenue. The factory no longer exists.

They had to grind out an opening big enough for a guy to walk through, said Jeremy Mucha, vice president of engineering for Portland-based Benson. Mucha explained that crews used a diamond-tipped grinder on a half-inch thick interior pane then broke out the thinner outer window.

The two men on the maintenance crew were subcontracted from Benson to Uptown Services Window Cleaning, but Mucha noted that the company that supplied the faulty rigging was separate.

The port authority owns the maintenance equipment and are going to find out what was wrong with it, Mucha said. He noted that the emergency safety lines and emergency crews all worked as they should have to prevent tragedy.

The Guardian newspaper reports that the scaffolding was supplied by U.K.-based Tactel Group, who has had two other similar malfunctions in recent years.

The workers were uninjured and rescued around 2:15 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 12, after 90 minutes spent clinging to the rigging over the New York skyline, CNN reported.

The hole is now boarded up and a Benson crew will install a new window this week. Once the silicone caulking cures, Mucha said, the crew will need to go back out on a swing-stage scaffold to finish replacing the glass.

Begun in 2009, it was a four-year process for Benson to install the curtain wall the outer skin of the skyscraper. The 1,776-foot-tall One World Trade Center officially opened Nov. 3, according to CNN.

Mucha said when the story hit the national news, everybody called wondering if they knew that our building was on TV.

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Gresham-made windows featured in death-defying New York rescue