Americana & the U.S.

In 1968, a fellow student at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, informed me his late father had been security guard on the Empire State Building in New York. I’d asked him while working there had he ever met any famous people who’d been a tourist? “Just one person of fame, after years as security guard, and after my father’s death I inherited that famous woman’s Observation Deck ticket receipt for May 1st, 1947, which she had given him.

“My father said there were only a few others on the 88th floor deck when this pretty young woman walked up to him and said with a smile as she handed him the ticket stub ‘Here, put this in your scrapbook!’ My dad had immediately figured she was some pretty, young actress whom he didn’t know, or just hadn’t recognized. Only a dozen feet from her at the edge of the deck, dad kept looking at her, trying to at last recognize the charming female. He had watched her turn and say something to a woman hesitating to near the edge of the deck. She had suddenly turned and noticed he was staring at her! Her look back at him with a smile made my father embarrassingly turn away.

“When my father turned back to look at her, SHE WAS GONE! Dad ran to edge of deck where laid her folded coat; purse; small brown case. My father picked these items up, while telling visitors to stay until police arrived. After dad gave Detective Murrey Miss McHale’s things, Murrey asked if the victim had spoken to ayone on the deck before she’d jumped? Woman who’d feared nearing edge said Miss McHale turned, told her to come closer for better view; adding “Your fear is not of falling…BUT OF JUMPING.”

Later when the story teller gave me the ticket stub to help tell his father’s story, he had requested I not use his father’s name. He explained, “Ya see Jim, dad had that fateful day given the explained detective Murrey the McHale items; he hadn’t mentioned what she’d said to him and hadn’t shown him the receipt stub she had given him. He always felt guilty about this questionable act of withholding evidence in this legendary case of suicide! Dad’s concept of guilt seemed to increase with age until he died.”