“People in that area should act as if there is asbestos … as a precaution,” the chairman and chief executive officer of Con Edison, Kevin Burke, said, following last Wednesday’s steam pipe explosion in Midtown.

Quite a different message was sent back in the summer of 1989, when an even larger explosion rocked my building in Gramercy Park. That year’s geyser of superheated steam, rubble, and scalding mud erupted on the corner of 20th Street and Third Avenue and raged for four hours. Windows imploded. Trees bent. Manholes bounced. Bricks and chunks of street sent cars spinning. Three people died: a 28-year-old new mother napping in her third floor apartment and two utility workers, one of whom was literally steamed to death after seeking refuge in our lobby’s mailroom. You could see where he tried to kick through the sheetrock only to find brick.