The tallest building in New Jersey is Goldman Sachs' tower on the Jersey City waterfront. Right now, it's right in front of waves being driven off the New York Harbor by bands of rain from Hurricane Sandy to the South. We went to take a look, to see how it was doing.
The water is maybe one or two feet below the lobby entrance to the building, which has been fortified with hundreds of sandbags.
High tide is expected at 8.53 p.m. this evening, at which point, if forecasters are correct, the Goldman Sachs building will have sea water in its lobby.
For some context, here's what the Goldman tower looks like on a normal sunny day:
The tower houses Goldman's back-office, real estate, admin and tech staff. About 4,000 people work there, but not the traders -- they infamously staged a mutiny in the mid-2000s and refused to work there. They stayed in Manhattan, at Goldman's official HQ.
Here's what it looks like right now:
Goldman has built a huge wall of sandbags around the base of the tower:
The problem is that the water is already overlapping the pier on which it stands:
You can see above that the water has broken through the pier nearer the old Colgate clock, which sits about 50 yards from the base of the tower. Once water gets above that corrugated ironwork, it will be roughly level with Goldman's front door.
Here's the lobby of the Goldman tower:
At midday today, the waves were coming up onto the boardwalk in front of the building:
It's not looking too good for the Hyatt hotel, about a block away, either. This hotel and its bar -- which has a spectacular view of the harbor on a normal day -- is no stranger to Goldman's staff. The water is up to the boardwalk around the hotel:
What these photos don't show is how windy it is -- it can be difficult to walk. Police have also blocked off much of the boardwalk.
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