The window guard was an iron cage bolted to the outside of the window frame. Bars in a grid. Painted black or left to rust. The window guard kept the children from falling out. That was its only job. The window guard had one sentence in its contract and the sentence was do not let the child hit the sidewalk.

Eric Clapton's son fell from a window on East Fifty-Seventh Street in 1991. Fifty-three floors. The window had no guard. After that the city changed the law. Every apartment with a child under ten had to have window guards. The law was written in grief. Every window guard in the city is a scar from somebody else's tragedy.

The window guard changed the look of the building. A tenement with window guards on every floor looked like a prison from the outside. The tourists walked past and took pictures and said look how the poor people live. They did not understand. The window guard was not a cage. The window guard was a net. The window guard said you can open the window and let the air in and the sound in and the light in and nothing will fall out. The window guard was freedom with a safety harness.

My mother hung laundry on the window guard. Shirts and socks draped over the iron bars drying in the summer air. The window guard was a clothesline. The window guard was a shelf for the flower pot. The window guard was where you leaned your elbows when you sat at the window and watched the street. The window guard had one job and the neighborhood gave it six.

The new buildings have windows that do not open all the way. The window opens four inches. The architect solved the problem by removing the air. The window guard let you open the window all the way and breathe the city and nothing fell out. The sealed window keeps you safe by keeping you sealed. Those are different kinds of safety.

See also: Fire Escape, Clothesline Pole