SCENARIO: A prospective employer based in NYC calls and offers you a fantastic new job complete with a big hike in salary/perks/career potential. The only catch is that your office would be located on the 85th floor of the Empire State Building (ESB).
Momentarily dismissing whether you would actually want to work in NYC, how HEAVILY would the ESB factor influence your decision?
Not at all.
I would work in the Empire State Building, no worries. The only problem would be getting there, since I live in Australia, and can’t bring myself to want to get on a plane at this point in time 
I don’t think these terrorists will repeat themselves. I don’t think the Empire State Building means anything to them (where the symbol of World Commerce means plenty). However, I would not take a job at the White House at the moment.
I would do it, as long as I didn’t have a desk within ten feet or so of a window. I’m sure it’s a great view, but I’m terrified of heights, and tend to get vertigo if I’m not careful. The fear of future terrorist attacks wouldn’t really deter me.
I’m not a New Yorker, but wouldn’t it be much harder for a jumbo jet to hit the ESB than the WTC? It seems to me that there are a fair number of pretty tall buildings in the area that you would have to navigate around.
I had the impression that the WTC stuck out a bit more.
I do know that a plane has hit the ESB before, but it was a much smaller plane and it was in an era when there were fewer skyscrapers in NYC.
My only problem with working in the ESB is the same as Darwin’s Finch: I’m afraid of heights and I would get dizzy working up too high if I had to look out.
I’d only do it if they let me masturbate and eat cupcakes all day. After all, they’d have to give me one helluva perk to leave the West Coast…
It’d take a lot to get me to live in NYC to start with. I know you said big pay raise but it would depend on how big.
Yes, I’d be happy to work in the Empire State Building. I agree that the terrorists probably won’t try the same thing again. Anyway, there’s danger everywhere. I live in a crappy area of a crappy city just so I can go to a good university. This degree will be worth the muggings. Having a great job in the best city on earth would be worth the little bit of fear I’d feel when I looked out the windows. And yes, if they rebuilt the WTC, I’d be willing to work there too.
Sure would. I already work within 5 blocks of it now, and the main office of the company I work for is directly across the street from it. (As a matter of fact, I was at our main office on the 11th for a training class).
However, like Darwin’s Finch, keep me away from the windows! 
Darn tootin’. I like tall buildings (I guess it comes from living in a town where the tallest building is our three-story courthouse), and I’d jump at the oppurtunity of working in one.
I’ll tell you this. Every time I close up at night I know my odds just shot up of being robbed and/or killed. I don’t think about it beforehand, and then at the time there’s not much left to do but do it. Mom worries, but I don’t. There’s some odds shooting up in everybody’s life all the time. When you get in a car, when you exit a subway by the vacant aisle, when you get into a gypsy cab.