Who was the first person to commit suicide from the Empire State Building and actually land at the bottom w/out getting hung up on all the nets & spires along the way? Are there news articles on this?
Don’t know the answer, but your question needs some clarification. A person jumping from the top of the ESB may not get snagged on “nets and spires,” but he won’t hit bottom either – if by “bottom” you mean the sidewalk/street.
Though we imaginge the ESB as a long unbroken vertical tower (like the WTC) the building is actually somewhat stacked like a wedding cake. Even if the jumper managed to clear the topmost tiers and drop down the 70ish floors (my estimate based on looking at a photo) that comprise the main “trunk” of the ESB, he would still crash onto the roof of one of the lower tiers.
He’d have to be quite a long-jumper (or catch a crosswind) to clear all the layers of the cake and hit the sidewalk/street.
If you really MUST have an answer to this Q and no one on the board supplies one, I would suggest you ask the folks at the Skyscraper Museum here in NYC. Contact information is available at their website: skyscraper.org.
Good luck.
An early one was the woman who jumped and landed on the top of a car. That photo shows up a lot in Life Magazine “specials.”
There’s also a story I’ve heard/read (no doubt urban legend) of a guy clearing the netting but being blown in through an open window a few floors further down.
It’s extremely unlikely that someone falling from the 102nd floor (currently closed) would fall directly to the street (even King Kong bounced a couple of times). The first drop from there would be to the 86th, which is more than enough to kill you.
The lowest level (about six stories) is much larger than anything above it; you’d have to leap from there to hit the street.
The photo of the woman smashed into the car was not taken by the ESB, I believe.
An object can’t fall from the top of the Empire State Building and fall directly to the street unless blown a long way by a strong wind. The History Channel plays a documentary on skyscrapers from time to time and this info is from that.
As tall buildings began to go up in New York they began to shade the street and other properties which was considered to be undesireable. So the city passed ordnances requiring set-backs in the exterior walls every so many stories so that the shading wouldn’t be so severe. Buildings that front of the street, as does Empire State are required to have such set-backs.
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Did the WTC get around that because it was in a plaza?
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Sorry just curious
Around 1984 or so I was working on 33rd across from the building.Going to work one morning a cleanup crew with shovels was scooping debris from the street,which had the bloodstains there.
I don’t remember reading any followup to it,so don’t know if the jumper was from the 86th-or a lower floor,but those stains told me he/she got the job done pretty well-tho that surely wasn’t the 1st jumper.
World Eater asked:
“Did the WTC get around that because it was in a plaza?”
The WTC was able to be built the way it was for one or both of the following reasons.
The famed Comprehensive Zoning Law of 1916 (which estsablished the set-back rule David Simmons mentioned) was modified in 1961 to permit tower-in-the-park construction. So yes, being in a plaza certainly helped get the WTC design built. Although…
It is quite possible that the WTC designers could have built their building(s) any old way they wanted – the laws be damned. The WTC was a Port Authority project. The Port Authority is a creature of the STATE of NY (and NJ). As such, I’m pretty sure (not 100% certain) it did not have to conform to local NYC zoning laws. (I am certain, FWIW, that federal buildings do not have to conform to NYC zoning rules.)
A search of Google turns up the purported case of Elvita Adams, who supposedly jumped from the 86th floor and was blown through a window on the 85th floor. Could be, I suppose, but I wouldn’t trust it without a citation from a reputable source.
If true it does pose the question of whether she saw it as a reprieve or further proof of no/low self-worth…
Thanks Stuy.
Zoning laws are passed by cities, towns, villages, boroughs, and the like, which are legally creatures of the state in which they lie and under whose laws they are incorporated.
State agencies acting on behalf of the state are normally required either to conform to such laws or to formally supersede them by formally acknowledging the law’s existence and asserting a superseding state interest.
I still haven’t heard from skyscraper.com & have a mysterious but very important reason for asking. Erm, more specifically were there any male jumpers? I tried the NY Times archives but they aren’t old enough. Seems to me there ought to be a complete listing of ALL jumpers, regardless of where they landed, someplace. Thanks, though. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the responses sofar.
That wasn’t a jump from the Empire State Building. The car was parked in a parking lot. There isn’t a parking lot at the bottom of the Empire State Building.
I remember being on the roof of WTC (I forget which tower let us tourists go up to the top) during the late 70’s. The platform was set back so far (on all 4 sides) that you would have to be Nolan Ryan to even throw anything off of it, provided the gaurd didn’t tackle you first (you would have do a very obvious wind up) And no way a person could jump from there, not even Carl Lewis. I mean, it was a long distance from the platform to the actual building edge. And then, at the edge, there was a tall inward leaning fence with razor wire on top. I don’t know what the other tower had.
margot:
I hope you sent your Q to skyscraper.ORG not .COM. Yes?
yes.
“An early one was the woman who jumped and landed on the top of a car. That photo shows up a lot in Life Magazine “specials.””
—I have that photo up at my desk, to my co-workers’ consernation. She did indeed jump from the ESB, and had an admirable dismount to make it to 33rd Street (the building’s downtown side). Her name was Evelyn McHale, and she jumped in the spring of 1948—surely not the first jumper, though, which was the OP . . .