By Adrian Morrow
Associate News Editor
A large pane of glass fell out of the George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre on Saturday night and smashed on the sidewalk.
Luckily, no one was whacked on the head when the window fell to earth.
The section of Church Street sidewalk where the glass landed has been blocked off with caution tape.
Ryerson security is still investigating whether the glass was deliberately broken or whether it just fell out, said supervisor Keith Christie.
Security called police Saturday. Ian Hamilton, director of campus planning and facilities, suspects that vandals are the likely culprits.
“We can only imagine it’s vandalism,” he said. “There was still some glass left in the frame.”
The glass was specially designed to shatter into small pieces instead of large, sharp shards that can impale a person.
“This is designed so that if it does break, it breaks into tiny little diamonds — they’re not dangerous,” he said.
However, other cases of falling glass have led to serious consequences.
Last month, a plummeting piece of glass from a Montreal office tower hit a 15-year-old girl in the head.
Also in Montreal, a library has lost more than 10 decorative panes of glass over the last two years.
Its gotten so bad that the library has set up protective barriers to keep passerby from getting conked by the falling ornamentation.
Hamilton said glass breaking on campus is relatively common.
“We get windows broken all the time around campus. This does happen, unfortunately,” he said.
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