.
Empire State Building: photo by Psongco, 2006
There was that ancient dream of a gentle landing
She leapt, and floated down, a would-be bride
Convinced she "wouldn't make a good wife for anybody"
And landed somehow in a posture of calm repose
As though the sheet metal she had crumpled
With the heavy crash of her plummeting weight
Had turned into a bed of soft vinyl
To cushion her fall. A moment of fame in death.
Eighty-two storeys from the Observation
Tower. The photo of the week.
The body of Evelyn McHale, 23, atop a limousine after she jumped to her death from the observation platform of the Empire State Building: photo by Robert C. Wiles, Life, 12 May 1947
