A Half-Million-Dollar "Oops!"

Before heading home from work I read that one of the massive pieces of glass at the Fifth Avenue Apple store broke from the impact of a snowblower. I couldn't resist hopping off the subway 20 minutes later to take a closer look.


[All photos by John Hill]

The story linked above guesses that the cost to replace the glass will be $450,000, based on the bill for renovating the cube in 2011, when it changed from 18 panes per side to 3. Considering that each pane is made up of (I think) 5 layers of ~10'x32' tempered glass laminated to each other, this cost does not seem surprising.



Based on the uniform pattern of the break, it's obvious the tempered glass and plastic layer did their job...



...so much so that the store is still open regardless of the 300 square feet of broken glass overhead: