From left: Window washers, New York by Gehry and the Time Warner Center

One industry that has been quietly benefitting from the city’s increasingly glassy skyline is the window-washing industry. The New York Times reported that window washer services have been in higher demand of late, as professionals are needed to maintain the city’s growing population of tall steel and glass buildings.

Whereas windows in brick-clad buildings can usually be cleaned by an entrepreneurial superintendent from the inside, and the structures’ remaining facades are rarely scrubbed, glass and steel buildings present a completely different set of complications. [more]