On May Day, just after leaving her fiancé, 23-year-old Evelyn McHale wrote a note.
‘He is much better off without me … I wouldn’t make a good wife for anybody,’ …
Then she crossed it out. She went to the observation platform of the Empire State Building.
Through the mist she gazed at the street, 86 floors below. Then she jumped.
In her desperate determination she leaped clear of the setbacks and hit a United Nations
limousine parked at the curb. Across the street photography student Robert Wiles heard an
explosive crash. Just four minutes after Evelyn McHale’s death Wiles got this picture of
death’s violence and its composure.

Dimahilig draws knife from sleeve . . .

. . . rushes towards Mrs. Marcos . . .

. . . slashes her with bolo knife . . .

. . . her bodyguard hits him . . .

. . . as Mrs. Marcos collapses . . .

. . . and Dimahilig is shot dead

“You could call this the high point of my day. That’s because this nurse makes every other
women look like a sex-change. Unfortunately, she’s in love with the lord.”

“Yeah, I seen him,” Ruben said. The snow outside howled. The heat from the can warped the landscape of rotting buildings and razor wire.

Did he know who the dead person was?

“I don’t recognize him from his shoes.”

Did he call the police?

“No, I figured someone else did,” he said.

“There’s lots of people coming through here with cameras and cell phones. I don’t got no phone. I don’t got no quarter. Things is tight around here.”

His shack mate, Kenneth Williams, 47, returned at that point with an armload of wood.

“Yeah, he’s been down there since last month at least.”

He was asked if he called the police.

“No, I thought it was a dummy myself,” he said unconvincingly. Besides, Williams said, there were more pressing issues like keeping warm and finding something to eat.

“You got a couple bucks?” he asked.