The Empire State Triangle

Hello, Everybody—Nice seeing you again.

All the NYTimes-readin’ folks probably missed the story yesterday about how cars are mysteriously dying within a 5-block radius of the Empire State Building. Richard Weir wrote in the Daily News that some10 to 15 cars get stuck every day between 7th and Lex, from about 27th to 40th. If you draw a circle around the area where this is happening, the Empire State Building is right in the middle of it. Some cars’ remote entry systems won’t open the doors, and some cars’ engines won’t start even though everything else is working. The cars get towed 4 or 5 blocks, to outside the affected area, and then the doors open and they start right up and everything works fine.

Weir quotes “automotive experts and engineers” who say it’s likely a problem with radio transmissions from all the broadcast towers on top of the Empire State Building jamming the keyless entry systems that operate on specific wavelengths assigned by the FCC. The FCC says they haven’t had any complaints about car problems around the Empire State Building. The Empire State Building people say they don’t believe there’s any problem, and refused to give Reporter Weir a list of all the broadcast antennas there.

It was January 2003 when Sluggo and I tried driving into Manhattan one night—which was already weird, we never do that--and a cop stopped us from going down 5th Ave. at 42nd Street. The street was closed, he said, because of “ice falling from the Empire State Building.” In fact, all the streets for blocks around were closed. They were blocked off for the next couple of nights, too. I’ve never heard of ice falling off the Empire State Building before or since, and certainly not for several nights in a row, and not so that streets 8 blocks away had to be shut down. We naturally figured it was some Homeland Security thing being installed on the Empire State Building, something that would shoot down planes over Brooklyn or Queens before they could hit Manhattan. And how great is it that it turns out to be not a gun at all, but a giant transmitter that’ll make it impossible to open the airplane doors until they’re towed to, like, New Jersey.

Thanks for reading my blog post this time, and may God bless.

Comments

[bruceleh]

Ice really does fall from buildings.
It's amazing if you catch it at the right time, slabs like window panes flying down and shattering on the street. Could kill you, cause accidents, etc...

[bruceleh]

Ice really does fall from buildings.
It's amazing if you catch it at the right time, slabs like window panes flying down and shattering on the street. Could kill you, cause accidents, etc...

[Brooklyn Bridget]

Does it fall 8 blocks away?

[Dale Hazelton]

This happens around the Citicorp building and Lipstick buildings too, maybe has to do with the stepback design? Wikipedia lists all the stations with transmitters on the Empire State. I'm surprised the Times couldn't find this, unless the point was that someone was being evasive....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_State_Building#Broadcast_stations

[K]

I rather suspect that they've been testing car bomb jammers. A similar thing happened when the war was cranking up, people around some airforce bases were noticing that their car locks were jamming and garage doors opening and closing. The AF made some vague statement about testing radar. Then it became better known that a common remote detonator is a garage door opener ( you can ask an EE offline about why that works so well ).