April 9, 2004—Located in the heart of New York’s Times Square, NASDAQ’s 7-story MarketSite Tower is the largest video screen in the world. The electronic display wraps around the mostly glass cylindrical NASDAQ building. CNBC, CNNfn, Bloomberg, CBS MarketWatch and other financial news media broadcast live throughout the day from the ground floor studio.
ShatterGARDs flagship product, BlastGARD, a glass protection film, which meets and exceeds all current GSA standards, was originally developed for the U.S. military as a defense against bomb blasts, explosions and flying glass. Applied directly to a glass surface, BlastGARD works like an invisible coat of armor, strengthening the “weakest security link”—the glass. In the event of a major explosion, BlastGARD helps hold the razor sharp glass fragments together, preventing flying shards of glass from becoming deadly weapons. The film is virtually undetectable to the human eye and will not alter the appearance of the windows in anyway.
NASDAQ initially considered removing all the glass and installing ballistic glass. The proposals they received each came to over a million and a half dollars and would mean closing down the facility for three months while the existing glass was being removed and the new glass and window framing was installed. The BlastGARD film, however, not only cost less than one third the price of ballistic glass, but could also be installed during the day while NASDAQ continued to operate.
Although a typical BlastGARD installation is very straightforward, the NASDAQ building contains an unusual glass and framing structure. Steel cabling runs from the glass panels up to the ceiling both inside and outside the NASDAQ building. The cabling is similar to a crisscross of spider webs with several hooks that are attached to the glass surface itself. There is no framing, just the cabling, and a silicon substance is used to position and hold the glass in place. ShatterGARDs certified installers had to carefully cut the film around the various hooks and cables without diminishing the integrity of the installation, a process that more than tripled the normal installation time.
In addition to NASDAQ, military bases, government buildings, law enforcement agencies and commercial buildings worldwide including The FBI, The United States Naval Surface Warfare Center, Hoover Dam and Wells Fargo Bank have received professional consultations and assessments on glass protection by ShatterGARD, Inc. and are using its products to protect their windows against terrorism.
For more information, contact ShatterGARD.
