Cleaning high-rise windows is nothing like cleaning the windows of your house or bedroom, which only needs a damp cloth, a squeegee, some window cleaning detergent or a bucket of soapy water and some elbow grease! When you’re cleaning windows on the floors of a skyscraper, at the dizzying height of half a mile above the ground, things take on a drastically different feel.
Cleaning skyscraper windows is a dangerous job and not for the faint-hearted. It takes a certain type of person to be able work at heights way above the ground. Skyscraper window cleaners are skilled professionals, aware of the perils of their job. One slip or mistake and people could die, so safety is always foremost in window cleaners’ minds. Safety drills are performed regularly and everyone knows exactly what to do while suspended high up in the air.
Wind can play a big part too. Way up on the side of a skyscraper, winds generally blow at a much greater speed than down on the ground, which makes it absolutely vital for cleaners to be equipped with the relevant safety equipment.
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| Perched on a ladder workmen are cleaning the glass roof of the Observatory in Kew Gardens, London. 18th March 1930. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images) |
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| Window cleaners at work at BBC headquarters Bush House in the Strand, London. March 1931. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images) |
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| Window cleaners at work at BBC headquarters Bush House in the Strand, London. March 1931. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images) |
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| The 6000 windows of the United Nations Secretariat building in mid-town Manhattan, New York, are cleaned monthly by seven men, circa 1950. (Photo by Douglas Grundy/Three Lions/Getty Images) |
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| A window cleaner at work at the United Nations Secretariat building in mid-town Manhattan, overlooking the East River, New York, circa 1955. The building has 6,000 panes of glass in its two transparent facades, and the 7 cleaners take a month to complete the job. (Photo by Douglas Grundy/Three Lions/Getty Images) |
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| A window cleaner at work on the RCA Building, Rockefeller Center. May 1961. (Photo by William Lovelace/Express/Getty Images) |
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| A window cleaner clings to the side of one of the skyscrapers in the Rockefeller Centre, protected by a safety harness. The Empire State building towers in the background. 2nd May 1961. (Photo by William Lovelace/Express/Getty Images) |