On March 20, 1991. in a heartbreakingly tragic accident, Clapton's 4 1/2-year-old son Conor fell out of an open window in the high-rise.
He was living in the New York condominium with his mother, actress and Italian television personality Lory Del Santo. Although New York law requires window guards in apartment buildings, according to Snopes, a 1984 ruling exempted condos – leaving building owners to decide whether or not to have safety devices installed.
The New York Times reported that Conor's accident happened during a visit from the housekeeper, who had opened the six-by-four window in order to clean it when Conor wasn't in the room and was unable to prevent the boy from "[darting] past" before it was shut.
Clapton, who didn't live with Del Santo and Conor, happened to be in New York at the time. In fact, the night before tragedy struck, he'd taken Conor to the circus for an outing later memorialized in the song "Circus." As he later told Ed Bradley during a 1999 interview with 60 Minutes, wanting to be a good father to his son was what ultimately prompted Clapton to get sober.
Tears in Heaven - recorded for MTV Unplugged and then released as a single - addresses the relationship between father and son, and the hope that they will meet again someday, while Circus is a rueful look back on the last night Eric and Conor spent together.
In a 1998 BBC interview, Eric explained: "The last night I spent with Conor, we went to the circus. We went to see one of those huge things that they do in America where they have three rings going on at the same time. You've got clowns and tigers and everything. They don't do anything in half measures. They just pile it all in.
"After the show, we were driving back to New York City and all he could remember, all he could talk about was this clown. He'd seen a clown with a knife, which I didn't see at all. Some clown was running around brandishing a knife, which was something quite frightening but he liked it - I mean, it excited him. And so that is in the lyrics. But, and I suppose what I was doing, I was paying tribute to this night with him and also seeing him as being the circus of my life. You know - that particular part of my life has now left town."
