A Lightning Rod in More Ways Than One

By DAVID W. DUNLAP

Oversize in almost every way, the Empire State Building has been the scene of several awful dramas in its 81 years - as well as a singular cinematic one - all magnified by the tower's status as one of the most recognizable symbols of New York City.

Though Friday's incident did not take place within the building, nor seem to have a direct connection to it, early news reports of a shooting at the Empire State Building with multiple victims certainly fueled civic anxiety. And not without reason.

On Sunday, Feb. 23, 1997, a 69-year-old Palestinian, Ali Abu Kamal, opened fire with a semiautomatic handgun at the visitors on the 86th-floor observation deck. He killed Chris Burmeister, 27, a guitarist from Denmark who had come to the United States with a band called the Bushpilots. Mr. Abu Kamal wounded six others, including the Bushpilots' singer, Matthew Gross of Montclair, N.J., before fatall y shooting himself in the head.

A letter found on the gunman's body indicated that he had set out to avenge the treatment of Palestinians by “Zionists,” and that his choice of a setting was purposeful.

“My restless aspiration is to murder as many of them as possible,” he wrote, “and I have decided to strike at their own den in New York, and at the very Empire State Building in particular.”

That shooting drew immediate attention to the fact that security guards at the building did not inspect handbags or baggage, nor did they have metal detectors. Inspections had begun shortly after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center but were discontinued in about three or four months after many complaints from tenants, ticket agents and tourists.

“With no incident whatever, they believed their security was adequate,” Howard J. Rubenstein, a spokesman for the Empire State Building's owners, said at the time.

When the observation deck reope ned two days later, airport-style metal detectors had been installed. In August, a 38-year-old tourist from Plainfield, Ind., Chaulin Zhu, was arrested when a guard spotted a .380-caliber handgun with an extra magazine clip in Mr. Zhu's fanny pack, which was about to go through a detector. Mr. Zhu said he had not realized he could not legally bring the gun into New York, a police spokesman said.

The most memorable and devastating event at the building was the crash on July 28, 1945, of an Army Air Corps B-25 bomber into the 78th and 79th floors. It was on its way in heavy fog to Newark Airport. John Tauranac described the event in his 1995 book, “The Empire State Building: The Making of a Landmark”:

The building shuddered, realigned itself and settled. Probably instantly, although several witnesses said there seemed to be a moment's interval, came the explosion, and the top of the fog-shrouded Empire State Building was briefly seen in a bright ora nge glow. High-octane airplane fuel spewed out of the ruptured tanks and sprayed the building.

The pilot and two crew members were killed, as were 11 people working on the 79th-floor for the National Catholic Welfare Conference, which occupied the space rent-free for its mission of helping people affected by war, Mr. Tauranac wrote. “Those who were on a direct line with the crash were either killed outright by the impact or by the explosion, mummified in the positions they had assumed when the crash occurred. Several who were running from the flames were overtaken by them and engulfed.”

The aftermath of the crash was recorded by Ernie Sisto, a photographer for The New York Times, who managed to get an elevator ride with emergency workers to the 67th floor, then walked upstairs to a position above the impact zone, where he persuaded two other photographers to hold his legs while he leaned over a parapet to make the shot.

More than 30 people have killed themselves by jumping off the building.

The most famous suicide was probably that of 20-year-old Evelyn McHale of Baldwin, N.Y. She jumped from the 86th floor on May 1, 1947, falling atop a parked car. A note found in the gray cloth coat she left behind said, “I don't think I would make a good wife for anyone.” An extraordinary picture by a photography student, Robert Wiles, showed Miss McHale in a state of what looked to be peaceful repose in the wreckage of the automobile.

It was published in Life magazine as the “picture of the week,” and is sometimes known as the “most beautiful suicide.”