Man plunges from Galleria-area tower A man who climbed the Williams Tower near the Galleria this morning plunged from the 30th floor and died, authorities said. Although witnesses and Houston Fire Department officials originally said it appeared the man jumped, police said it wasn't clear whether the man jumped or merely became exhausted and pushed away from the building. Police recovered a driver's license and a note reportedly containing a message of a political nature. Authorities declined to reveal the man's identity or details of the note, other than to say that the climber was a 20-year-old white male and that his note did not mention plans to jump. Police said they were having difficulty obtaining a positive identification on the man because of the damage to his body, and planned to rely on fingerprints. Houston Police Department spokesman Joe Laud said this morning's incident may have started around 5:30 a.m. when a bomb threat was called in from the Galleria area. Police would not say if the threat was to Williams Tower, but police did make a check of the building. As officers were starting to leave around 6:30 a.m., a worker with the property management office told police a man was attempting to climb the tower. A spokesman for the Houston Fire Department, which sent rescue crews to the tower at 2800 Post Oak Boulevard, reported that the man somehow found a way outside of the gleaming skscraper on the 10th floor and began climbing near the southwest corner. He was not harnessed to the building in any way. Laud said officers reported the man would climb until he got tired and would then attach some type of suction cup to the tower's glass windows and hold on to the cup with his teeth while he rested. Police tried to talk to the man from an open window a few floors below as he continued to ascend. About 7:45 a.m., however, as news helicopters hovered and spectators watched from nearby buildings and the city's busiest freeway, Loop 610, he apparently let go, Houston Fire Department spokesman Jay Evans said. Rosendo Lopez, a labor foreman working across the street from Williams Tower, saw the scene unfold from the magnifying lens of a piece of construction equipment. About halfway up the 901-foot building, the man paused, Lopez said. "I saw him look back over his shoulder and push himself away from the building. He shoved his whole body with his hands and legs," Lopez said. Witness Pat McGarey, a tower worker, said the man had been yelling or singing and periodically waved his hands. "It clearly looked like he jumped as opposed to falling," McGarey said. Police said the man landed in the grass, and his hands were bloody. Evans said most climbers in Houston have either reached the top of the buildings or are talked into coming inside. "We've been very fortunate here in Houston, with many tall buildings," Evans said. The Williams Tower, a Houston landmark formerly known as the Transco Tower, is 64 stories high. The glass and steel tower was designed by the famous architect Philip Johnson and built in 1983.
I remember when a guy climbed the Chase Building (then the Texas Commerce Bldg) in a white tuxedo...and another guy climbed another building downtown in a clown suit...he used suction cups and parachuted off when he got about 3/4 of the way up. I heard on the radio this morning that someone was climbing Williams Tower...they were speculating it was the spiderman guy who also climbed the Sears Tower...but apparently this guy left a note like this was some sort of political statement. Weird.
When I was a kid I sneaked up with a friend all the way under the spotlight in the building (as far as you can possibly go...)...This was way before 9/11...Now I'd get arrested easier than anything. I bet I couldn't duplicate that feat now.
Oh, oh, this is too good to pass up, but I'm still hurting from the self-righteous pounding some of us received in the Great-Wall-bike-jump thread. ... I can't resist "Dear World. I cannot go on if Al Gore is really not running for President in 2004. Losers everywhere, losers like me, have few high-profile options for role models. Bob Saggot (sic) will simply not do, and Creed only comes to town once a year or so."
Channel 11 said that the political note left by the jumper referenced the mistreatment of Muslims and the impending war with Iraq. This wannabe Spiderman was about as effective as Sean Penn in Baghdad.
why the hell do this??? what does it prove?? how does it make a statement?? by the way...tomorrow i'm making a statement...i think the Chinese government should lay off the Christians in China...so I'm gonna eat a Big Mac. huh??
if you can get the news to cover it, break into tv programming and stop traffic while eating, you may have some impact, otherwise, you will have just eaten a big mac....
great...so the news covered it...what's the statement again?? how does it make the point at all??? i'm thinking there are some better ways to illustrate one's political views than climbing and the dropping or jumping off a skyscraper...but i'm old-fashioned, so maybe that's just me.
I heard that the news channels were covering it live earlier. Does anyone know if they showed him jumping unedited and so on as they were covering it live?
amen!!! how about taking a job as my new political consultant?? should be pretty easy since the answer to most of my questions is, of course, James Coney Island.
some believe that he just got tired and gave up...his hands were bloodied, and he would rest a lot shaking his arms.
