Here’s where it gets personal. The people who trek into the basement of the Empire State Building aren’t just any meter readers. According to Con Edison (New York’s power lords), this building requires a special breed of human—part engineer, part mountain goat.
One guy, I’m told, named Dave, once got lost for 45 minutes in a sub-basement tunnel that smelled like a wet hot dog and 1929. He emerged holding a meter reading for a phone closet that hadn’t been used since the Nixon administration. That is not a story; that is a comedy routine waiting for a Netflix special.
