So I was reading a news story today about a man in NYC who plunged 40 stories, landed atop a car, and survived. (Apparently, he survived thanks to the rosary beads in the car he landed on; he’s in critical condition so if he dies, I suppose we can blame his death on the rosary beads too?) Anyway, this story didn’t strike me as particularly factworthy, but it reminded me of one of my all-time favorite photographs: a famous Life magazine photograph of a woman who plunged to her death from the Empire State Building in the 40’s, landed atop a car, and managed to pull off the all-too-rare feat of making a stunningly beautiful corpse. I did a search and found that Salon.Com had done a story on the woman, entitled “The Most Beautiful Suicide”. Which brings me to…
Today’s Composed Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
The 102 story landmark, Empire State Building has been the launching pad for 31 successful suicides. Some say as many as 36 people have leaped to their death from the famed structure. The first suicide jumper fell to his death landing on the 86th floor soon after the building had opened. Sixteen more suicides occurred during the period of 1932 to 1947. In one suicide the body struck a pedestrian on the street below seriously injuring her. One 23-year old woman leaped from the building and her body struck a United Nations limousine below. The incident resulted in a famous Life Magazine photograph by Robert Wiles.
The photo ran a couple of weeks later in LIFE – magazine accompanied by the following caption and story:
At the bottom of the Empire State Building the body of Evelyn Mchale reposes calmly in a Grotesque Bier, Her Falling Body Punched Into the Top of a Car. 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.
Culled from: Salon.Com
What an absolutely gorgeous photo and so tragic.