Pritzker Award-winning architect Renzo Piano told the NY Times he was "totally in agreement" about the New York Times' decision to remove ceramic rods from the building's exteriors. The rods acted as rungs for three climbers to scale the building's exterior; Piano said, "I’m frankly quite worried about this new fashion of going up on buildings. This is what I call an inappropriate use of the building.” He added that the building was "built to......

Photograph, above, of the New York Times Building--as designed by Renzo Piano--by WallyG on Flickr; below, photograph of workers removing the rods by David Dunlap/NY Times After a third person managed to scale up its ladder-like exterior, workers went to work removing a number of the horizontal "rungs" gracing the New York Times Building. The NY Times dutifully reports this decision "represented a reversal for The Times, which had insisted that it would not......

Photographs by nedward on Flickr Earlier this morning, a man was arrested after climbing on the New York Times Building's exterior, making him the third person to do so in six weeks. The man, 29-year-old David Malone, hung a banner over the banner to help promote his book about Osama Bin Laden; while he started up the building at 1:30 a.m., he wasn't apprehended until 5:20 a.m. Malone had called the Daily News, explaining......

So much for the security modifications outside: Over night, a third person scaled the exterior of the New York Times Building on Eighth Avenue at 41st Street in Midtown Manhattan. The first reports of his presence were around 1:30 a.m., and the NY Times reports, "after staying on the building for about four hours, the man surrendered to police officers and was arrested around 5:20 a.m."...

A week ago, Alain Robert scaled the New York Times Building to make a statement about the lack of government action on environmental issues (here's his website). Naturally, a stunt like that got Robert arrested, but a grand jury has dismissed the misdemeanor charges of trespassing, graffiti, reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct. According to Robert's lawyer Daniel N. Arshack, who said jurors listened to Robert's explanation of how the climb was safe, two other charges......

Photograph, top, of Alain Robert by Carol Quillen; photograph, below, of Renaldo Clarke by Michael Chan A lawyer for the "French Spiderman" who scaled the New York Times building last week believes his client should be honored, not reprimanded by the city. Alain Robert, who used the 52-story climb to draw attention to global warming (he unveiled a banner reading "Global warming kills more people than 9/11 every week"), appeared in court and faces......

The Post and Daily News gleefully put the old Gray Lady on their covers with the same headline--"The New York Climbs"--in the Times' headline font. The NY Times tucks mention of the pair of unrelated climbers, Alain Robert and Ray Clark, who scaled its building to the bottom of the front page. A year ago, the Post and Daily News didn't use the same headlines, but they did use the same cover and back......