June 6, 2008
All the News Buildings Fit to Climb
How does someone find out that his son is the second person climbing the New York Times Building in one day? Apparently when the Daily News calls. Renaldo Clarke Sr., a retired Con Ed worker, had been watching the footage of the guy scaling the side of the new Eighth Avenue skyscraper but didn't realize it was his son until the tabloid informed him. From the News:
Told the climber was his son, Clarke, 61, bolted from the living room couch in his Atlanta home and shouted to his wife: "Connie! It's Ray! It's Ray on that building."Renaldo "Ray" Clarke Jr., an IT consultant who had wanted to climb the building to raise awareness about malaria (his shirt said "Malaria No More"), claimed he was not copying Alain Robert's noontime climb (to publicize environmental issues) along the Times building. Onlookers and law enforcement officials noticed that Clarke wasn't as comfortable climbing as Robert was, since Clarke stopped frequently when his legs would cramp up. Now expert in observing building-scalers, one employee in the building told the Times, “When Alain came up this side, it was a cakewalk for him," but Clark seemed "fatigued...He stopped and hung by his arms. His feet were just swinging back and forth.”"He's strong and he's not afraid of anything, and he's done dangerous things before," the father said with a trace of pride underlying his concern. "I just want you to know he is not a nut."
Clarke made it to the top of the building safely and was taken to Bellevue for a psych exam before being taken to Central Booking and charged with reckless endangerment, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct (Robert faces the same charges). Clarke probably expected that, as his friend told the media, "I said, 'Are you sure about doing this? Have you thought about the consequences?' He replied he had thought about it."
The crowds watching, both from the street and inside the Times building, were simultaneously worried and thrilled. One woman said to WNBC, "Only in New York. This is why I live in New York." But the NY Times and Forest City Ratner (which developed the property) were not amused and assigned extra security to patrol the perimeter. And City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. weighed in, "Regardless of the cause, in this day and age the police department has more important things to worry about than ridiculous stunts like this that endanger the police and public. If he wants to climb something, he can climb the walls inside his jail cell at Rikers."
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I like this guy more than the other guy
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Ah yes, when we allow politicians, who make idiotic statements like throwing this guy in Rikers, to make actual laws that would do that, that's when we have problems of overcrowding and the real criminals (rapists, murderers, burglers, etc.) are given early release. Throw Vallone in Rikers and fine this guy some money to pay for Vallone's stay.
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They should both be made an example of and be prosecuted to the fullest extend of the law. Anyone is an ass to think this is fun and brings "character" to NYC.
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looks like a nice guy to me.
nice start to the PR weekend.
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I think it is fun and brings character to NY... I guess I'm an ass then... I'm only sorry I missed both of them... damn!
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I am a magnificent ass, it turns out.
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I foresee new measures taken at the NYT building to dissuade climbers.
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Excuse me if I'm dense, but how does this endanger the police? The public, perhaps, since gawkers on the sidewalks and in traffic might cause accidents, but it's not like the police began a vertical pursuit of the climber.
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Dude69, you support McCain, correct?
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Fuck Malaria yo.
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It is not far fetched that a climber could fall from their climb of a building. In addition to the climber, other people could get injured, or worse killed. Even people who are not spectators, maybe innocents just walking about. So the police are tasked with stopping the climber. And they are then endangered.
Now, it might be fun if an area was closed off and some daredevil was allowed to climb a building with spectators at a safe distance.
Even funner if the dope then fell.
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#9 - you're correct, McCain'08!
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Have these sorts of climbers ever hurt other people? Not in theory, but in reality?
They should get a ticket and a fine or a few hundred or a few thousand dollars for tresspassing, etc. Big whoop.
Also, malaria is a serious killer worldwide that can be prevented at relatively low cost. More should be done. www.malarianomore.org
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I like this taste of New York the way it was. I'm also glad no one was hurt. And I think we should make an example of Dude69: He's for McCain. A mindset that defies having a mind or a set.
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#14 - Oh, you're glad no one's hurt. So what if someone was hurt, a bystander, or even a friend of yours. Tell me how would this taste to that person.
Yes, my politics is a bit right of center, so I am inferior in the smarts department?! I think it's the liberal Obama supporters like you who's naive and intolerate of opposite views who need a brain.
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"It is not far fetched that a climber could fall from their climb of a building. In addition to the climber, other people could get injured, or worse killed."
Actually the second part of that, the idea that someone on the ground might be killed if a climber fell, IS pretty far-fetched. Everyone on the ground is looking up and would have no problem at all moving out of the way in the length of time it would take for someone falling from that height to reach the ground.
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@ jt10000
I don't know if some yahoo ever landed on someone during a similar stunt, but people have definitely died as a result of being struck by people falling from buildings. For example, on 9-11, it definitely happened.
I would expect that, in reality, there has been at least one instance, somewhere in the world, where somone was injured or killed by some climber that fell from a building.
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this guy wouldn't have killed anybody cause the streets would have been cordoned off and people would be looking up. I like it that this guy stole the french fag guy's thunder. Imagine spending all that time and energy climbing the tower and some other dude steals your prestige by one-upping you. HILARIOUS!
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"people have definitely died as a result of being struck by people falling from buildings. For example, on 9-11, it definitely happened."
Really? I don't remember hearing of that on 9/11. I wouldn't think there'd be a lot of people standing around under the towers providing targets.
I don't really remember hearing of anyone ever being killed by being hit by someone falling from a building for that matter, but that doesn't mean it couldn't have happened. Do you have any specifics?
But in any case, as babyhitler said, this is a different situation than a jumper suddenly and without warning plummeting from a building. People were aware that the climbers were there.
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The NY Times has us all crawling the walls. Case dismissed.
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jaycjay. I belive there were more than a few.
Here's one: Danny Suhr.
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One example? That's all you can find to support "more than a few" being killed by falling bodies? He's not even a good example. Suhr was killed because he was in an extremely dangerous environment and he was doing his job rushing in to save people. There was falling debris everywhere and he couldn't just take his time. Is anyone dumb enough to stand under a climber? There's not much of a view from that vantage point anyway.
You're conflating two different situations. I know of at least one story where a woman was killed by a suicide jumper in a mall atrium. But these kinds of situations are not the same as spectators standing at a distance to gawk. Unless you think the building and the cops would just sit back and leave any entrance below the climber open to foot traffic, or that human bodies falling from buildings can soar across the street.