525 is a scary building. I'm glad I don't work there anymore. The elevators randomly give you a couple feet of freefall, or open up a couple feet misaligned from the floor. The fire alarms go off every time there's a 2 second power outage (More frequent 2-second power outages than the rest of the neighborhood, too). The building has actual fires regularly as well, so ignoring the fire alarms isn't a good idea.

When there's a fire alarm, or even real fire, their priority seems to be not to force the trading companies to evacuate, not safety. For example, once there was a fire on the floor 5 flights below me, and we were told to evacuate -to- that floor (it was our "re-entry floor")! The evacuation plans involve going to a lower floor, but they allowed that floor to be the ones with a fire! It wouldn't have even been possible to evacuate to our "re-entry floor" if not for the the door held open by people fleeing the actual scene of the fire.

Only twice have I heard of a person being stuck in the elevator for multiple hours (only once did they have to pee in the elevator). Personally I've never been trapped longer than 5 minutes in that building's elevators.

The combination of false fire alarms, real fires, and elevators that can't be trusted at the best of times, will get you some exercise.

On the high floors, the building creaks loudly on a windy day. I'm sure that's part of the design of some buildings. "It's just the wind" doesn't take the fear out of it anymore after seeing a huge window start to crack within feet of your desk after 8 hours of loud creaking.

Window washers trapped 32 stories above ground in Jersey City
by Amy Sara Clark / The Jersey Journal
Friday July 10, 2009, 3:18 PM

Three window washers are currently trapped on scaffolding 32 stories above ground at downtown Jersey City office building, an official said.

The workers, who were working at 525 Washington St., became trapped at about 2:30 p.m. -- apparently due to a failure of the mechanical lift, said Jersey City Fire Director Armando Roman.


The workers are waiting for repair crews from the scaffolding company to arrive, Roman said.

Several windows in the building have broken, apparently due to the broken lift, Roman said.

Stay tuned ...