Mr. Riddell, for his part, doesn't anticipate any time soon a robotic future that deprives his distributorship of its customer base of traditional windowcleaners.
The Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, draws 2 million members from the service sector from health care workers and social workers to janitors and windowcleaners.
In a city defined in no small measure by its towering architecture, Brooklyn Public Library archivist Ivy Marvel believes there is "civic pride" in knowing that windowcleaners exist.