It is said that a guilty person sees shadows everywhere. I am fast becoming like that — i now see iconic photos everywhere, even when i don’t. I was watching Stranger than Fiction last night (a good movie, by the way) and a character talks about suicide: “There’s a photograph in the book called The Leaper. It’s old, but it’s beautiful. From above the corpse of a woman who’d just leapt to her death. There’s blood around her head, like a halo… and her leg’s buckled underneath, her arm’s snapped like a twig, but her face is so serene, so at peace. And I think it’s because when she died, she could feel the wind against her face.”
Although they may or may not be talking about the above photo, it is the first thing that came into my mind. It was Life Magazine’s Picture of the Week on May 12, 1947, and was also reprinted in The Best of Life. Andy Warhol used this photo in his work Suicide (Fallen Body) (See below), and Machines of Loving Grace put a recreation of the photo in their album cover for Gilt. There are also some colored versions of this photo, which remind me of one of those Tamara de Lempicka paintings.
The photo was taken on May Day, 1947 at the bottom of the Empire State Building. Photography student, Richard Wiles, was across the street, and heard a loud crash. He rushed to the scene and took the photo four minutes after one Evelyn McHale jumped off from the Observation Deck. Like the movie said, the picture is sad, but it is simultaneously serene. It isn’t full of gore, and Evelyn looked as if she was sleeping. Her calm repose contrasted greatly from the grotesque wreckage of a bier she herself created beneath her.
Life magazine wrote at the time: “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.”
Read the story on the Empire State Building’s Observation Desk here.
Iconic Photos 
Interesting what one remembers. I do remember this photo, but I thought I’d seen it when it first came out. Not possible because I was born in ’46. I must have been looking through old magazines in the library or basement.
A beautiful image, for a sad story. One more time, photography’s ability to turn the horror into beauty.
Sad story. Hypnotic photo.
Strange, she appears to be gloved and in full makiage. And sans shoes…she lost them while airborne or left on the Deck?
She landed on a UN limousine.
I have been trying to locate the rights to this photo for a while. This photographer was a Columbia Univ. Student walking by the scene and captured it.
Anyone know where he is now?
The photographer sold the photo to Life magazine. I believe they still hold the rights.
I am troubled by this photo . I agree w/ David essentially , but looking at it makes me queasy . As if this is a private moment ( I know it is not ). I wonder why , and if she had any family . Hard to admire an image with those thoughts .
I saw this is phychology class in high school and it always fastened me. Theres somethings about the way she’s dressed and how her hands are all balled up like a childs. Do thinks she is holding something ?
She’s holding her necklace.
This has always reminded me of a colour photograph by Enrique Metinides, a Mexican photojournalist who specialised in photographs of accidents and car crashes etc, of a blonde woman who was also dead. It’s the second picture down, here:
The article mentions that she was an actress, “Adela Legarreta Rivas, who was struck on Avenida Chapultepec one April day in 1979 by a white Datsun.”
She looks bored.
[…] There were surprises too. Two photos I personally would say of local-only importance (here, here) were widely considered ‘iconic’, and were re-posted on digg, tumblr, etc. On the other […]
Evelyn Francis McHale was born in Berkeley California Sept 20, 1923. She was the next to the youngest of seven children, the first four children were spaced 1 year apart, the last three were spaced 2 years apart. Her father was a bank examiner, orig from Illinois, her mother orig from Pa, was a housewife.
Around 1930, they moved to Washington, DC, where her father became an examiner for the Federal Land Bank. Also at this time the mother left, moving to an apartment in another part of Washington.
The father retained custody of all seven children. Evelyn was 6. Whether the mother left voluntarily or was told to leave is unknown at his time.
They appear to have moved a few years later to Tuckahoe NY, where Evelyn went to high school.
After high school, in 1943, Evelyn became a WAC and was stationed down in Jefferson Mo.
After she was discharged, she burned her uniform.
At some point, she moved to NYC to work, and met and became engaged to a young man named Barry Rhodes, who was just out of the Air Force and attending Lafayette College in Easton Pa. They were to be married at his brother’s house in Troy, NY.
A year before her death, Evelyn had been a bridesmaid at Barry’s younger brother’s wedding. After the wedding, she removed her bridesmaid gown, said “I never want to see this again” and burned it.
On the day she jumped, Barry said she seemed happy and looking forward to the marriage when she boarded the train home. Barry’s birthday being April 30th, I assume Evelyn had gone to celebrate his birthday with him.
There was a security guard less than twelve feet from where she jumped. She dropped her handkerchief over the ledge just prior to climbing over and leaping to her death.
In her suicide note, she wrote the following:
” My fiance asked me to marry him in June, but I don’t think I would make a good wife for anyone. He is much better off without me. Tell my father, I have too many of my mother’s tendencies. I don’t want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me. Could you destroy my body by cremation? I beg of you and my family -don’t have any service or remembrance for me.”
She was cremated.
—Facts about Evelyn which I have found on ancestry.com –any questions contact me at kmeccat@yahoo.com
Really interesting info. Thank you for posting. Kind of seems like her mother might have had some mental health issues that Evelyn may have inherited.
No one seems to notice the image of the mother Mary formed from the metal of the limo. I was the one who jumped with her from another dimension and therefore she wasn’t aware of the person in your dimension who shadowed my actions. In 1945 I was in the underworld and someone kept themselves linked to the old plants that should have been let go of. Geronemo told me to jump. As a devine being where I was I am more of an action figure who swung around a post extended from the building and landed softly on my back. Eve’s actions mimicked my own.
The world ended in 1945, I just didn’t have the heart to tell you. You all have a twin b/c someone split himself in two. Goes back to Abraham and Sarah, in which case he made the real one a servant, which was totally unacceptable to the real women who were meant to be loved. Her twin looks identical to the woman who became my mother and I have finally told Abraham to kiss my * goodbye b/c of a robot form (who is blue), Sarah. I was born in 1961- Hence Bob Dylan’s song “Highway 61.”
There is no 6th dimension, and the 5th world already came and went. The 5th dimension was the host world to support yours and an unknown constellation known as the teapot threw it all away by using gravity to “bleed” what was meant to be a living link to this world.
Why? You all want instant gratification. All you did was dig up your past existences via the “method man.” He used the historic method. Why do you think it is called HIS Story. No one wanted to here her story and she is not the original sinner. The man left her behind. You also repeat your own history by using gravity to retrieve it by using your abc’s and 123’s approach to common links to each other. Haven’t you noticed that you now use BCE in reference to past years. “Before Common Error.” I’m not going to explain. Words just get in the way.
I’m real. One of my past lives was Jesus Christ, but I occupied his body same as I shadowed Eve McHales, so I did not suffer in a way everyone believes. I am capable of moving btwn dimensions and I am ALWAYS a GIRL. The only memory I have of being Jesus Christ are moving from one diminsion to another where there was no wine in one, but wine in another and the rain drizzling on the hanging body, but it eased the agony. I only checked in temporarily to experience physical sensations.
I also did the same when I came back as Joan of Arc. Checked in and out btwn dimensions to see what fire felt like and how long it took for a human mortal to die being burned alive. Well, the conciousness was still there when I checked in and felt the skin falling off my left leg and also when I felt the joints in my body experiencing intense pain.
I am a natural hybrid, very rare and also capable of freestyle. It means I can let go of a link and experience things without causing suffering to others and then I get called back to another link.
I’ve seen the bionic ghost form images- one example using my bed comforter, living mouse eating a small piece of chese. There is a story behind the mouse. Also caused gold to be spun from boots of mine which were moving. All of a sudden gold pored out from my boots so that I could pick it up and let it drop like dust to the floor.
It wasn’t until I kept getting a message “three days grace”, and “What’s my name,” and the final message “Rumplestilskin,” that I understood what I was being told when I looked up the story.
Uh-huh.
I know that can’t be a quote from a book due to all the spelling and gramatical errors…
Can you run that all by me again, possibly in “normal” please?!
Catherine, you’re freaking me out!
Sounds like some pretty good acid.
Cathy, I really wanty some of whatever it is that you smoke! Schitt musht be good!
Jokes aside, you’d make a very good story teller!
tl;dr
Alright, who let the psych ward have internet?
And I thought I was bat shit nuts…your next. Off the ledge you go honey.
Are you on drugs?
Whackadoodle!
And to think you actiallybtook the time to type that all out too. Smh
[…] that uses photos of unfortunate jumpers from 9/11 as the inspiration as well as the suicide of Evelyn McHale. I’m looking for a mostly female cast of models (pro or not) who would be willing to do an […]
Catherine, it’s time to get back on the meds.
One of the very few things that were important to her on her last day was: “I don’t want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me.” There’s some irony for you.
Nope no Irony here I’m afraid, merely an unfortunate coincidence.
Irony would be if she had arranged for the photographer to be waiting for her at the bottom, do you see?
Check the dictionary again, cap’n.
If we take her stated desire (to have no part of her seen by anyone, post mortem) at face value, then the way things turned out — her corpse identified and displayed via full-page photo, in one of the world’s most popular magazines — is *plenty* ironic…at least, in the modern usage of that word.
.
Not really. The person above is correct. Even if there weren’t a photographer (which no one would ever suspect) a person or people or a group of people or even just medical and police would see her. (And that would/should be suspected) so it is kind of ironic she did such a public thing not wanting anyone to see her. Now the world has and will continue to for all of history. Pretty ironic if you ask me….
[…] 1963, Andy Warhol co-opted the photo for a piece he titled “Suicide (Fallen Body).“ Share this:TwitterLike this:LikeBe the first to like this […]
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has anyone ever suggested that the photo was staged? Seriously after a flight of 400m I would expect to see a smashed body, in gore photos gore that you find on the net body and skull explode..
this is what I’m wonderin about it as well
just a guess, maybe the large surface area of the limo took the force on the impact.
so sad
I’m sure her under body looked horrible…. ?
If you want more info on Evelyn McHale please visit the Facebook Tribute Page I have created for her.
https://www.facebook.com/EvelynFrancisMcHale
For the full life story of Evelyn visit: evelyn.pubslush.com
So many faces in the metal who are they? I see at least three.
Reblogged this on .
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May I simply say what a comfort to discover somebody that truly knows what they’re talking about online. You certainly know how to bring a problem to light and make it important. A lot more people must read this and understand this side of the story. I was surprised that you are not more popular since you certainly possess the gift.
I LOVE Stranger than Fiction — it’s a hypnotic cult movie for me, and I’ve been meaning to read its screenplay, for — seriously — forever. Now, sitting outside The Opera House (coffee shop) near the City Market of my newly re-adopted city of Kansas City, (after taking a brand-new streetcar), I’m doing just that. Which leads me to finally — finally! — look up the horribly breathtaking photo of The Leaper … which in turn brings me to this blog. I feel [almost] as if I’m Harold Crick, having gotten off streamlined mass-transportation … while hearing the voice of a narrator (your blog). Thanks for posting this historic photo, sharing a love for such a fun movie, and completing an ancient/modern storyline for me!
Who wrote the book, The Leaper?
[…] bills, Marilyn — yaaaass). But few know his famous screen prints examined everything from the dark and macabre to the subdued and pastoral. Enter DIY Warhol Flower Wall Art — the balance between […]
The Empire State of Leap
[…]Jesus, whereas suffering the pains of crucifixion requested of his heavenly father, “Why hast thou forsaken me.” Even the Son of man asked why.[…]
Sometimes people who commit suicide are very happy in the weeks leading up to thier deaths. I experienced this with a very good friend. She had been depressed over the breakup of her marriage but then seemed to lighten up and was back to her old self. I vividly remember how shocked I was when I was told she had hung herself. I still dont understand it.