Summer Associates, Weirdness

A Very Odd Summer Associate Assignment

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Remember the massive steam pipe explosion in New York City last month, which displaced a number of the city’s major law firms?
It has spawned an amusingly bizarre project for one summer associate. This befuddled individual then turned to the law school listserv for help.
(Random aside: Unless you WANT something posted to Above the Law, don’t send that email to your law school listserve. Once something has been as widely distributed as a listserv, you can’t reasonably expect it to remain private.)
ATL readers, maybe you can help out this hapless SA? Surely some of you are good at statistics.
Check out this head-scratcher of an assignment, after the jump.


EMAIL SENT BY SUMMER ASSOCIATE TO LAW SCHOOL LISTSERV
From: [redacted]
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2007 12:35 PM
To: [Listserve for a top five law school]
Subject: The Exploding Steam Pipe Memo
I am terrible with stats and I just got assigned a rather peculiar task by a partner. The firm I’ve been with this summer is (was) on Lexington Avenue and 41st St – – right next to the steam pipe explosion from a couple of weeks ago. We have the unique distinction of being in the only building that has yet to open because of the blast. We have been working out of a very tiny space without air conditioning for almost three weeks, and this assignment grew out of those circumstances.
I have been asked to prepare a memo on the odds that our building would be one affected by the steam pipe blast. Here’s what I’ve been able to figure out so far:
The area of Manhattan is 23 square miles per Collier’s Encyclopedia.
There are approximately 69,000 buildings in Manhattan
There are 105 miles of steam pipes. However,, this is misleading because the vast majority of them are in midtown (where we were) and way downtown.
http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com/i/msnbc/Components/Art/USNEWS/070720/AP_steam_network_070720.jpg(see map in upper left corner)
The crater itself (the best guess I have at the diameter of the blast) is 35-40 feet wide.
The approximate area of midtown where the steam pipes are concentrated is 2.675 square miles.
I have no idea what to do with these numbers. I was hoping someone might be able to point me in the right direction or at least tell me what other numbers I need. ANY HELP GREATLY APPRECIATED.
Cheers,
[redacted]

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