On Friday, we looked at a fox who took up residence in the Shard building in London, soon to be Europe's tallest building. Now, the New York Times runs a story about a much bleaker sort of squatter—the homo sapiens kind, that is—and the 2,500 of them that have made a 45-story office building in Caracas, Venezuela their home. Called the "Tower of David," the skyscraper is one of the tallest in Latin America and was never finished thanks to the financial crisis that hit the city in the '90s. Now, there's no working elevator, and many of the floors are without guarded balconies or windows. Said one activist: “That building is a symbol of Venezuela’s decline. What’s our future if our people are living like animals in unsafe skyscrapers?” Indeed.
· Europe's Tallest Building Gets Rather Foxy First Resident [Curbed National]
· A 45-Story Walkup Beckons the Desperate [NYT]