Gals Dare Death to See The Beatles (1966)

 This is one of those stories that has stuck with me all of these years.  I think we can all agree that these two girls took Beatlemania too far.  Threatening to take your own life to meet the Beatles is just way too much and I am glad that they were not rewarded for this act.  I also hope they were able to get the help they must have needed and I wonder what the outcome of the "disorderly conduct" charges were.

Gals Dare Death to See The Beatles

By Joseph Cassidy

The Daily News

August 23, 1966

    Two teenage girls undergoing what a Roosevelt Hospital psychiatrist later described as an "acute situation reaction" attracted 1000s of startled sidewalk gawkers yesterday afternoon by perching on the edge of the 22nd-floor rooftop of the Americana Hotel. 

    "We must see the Beatles." The West Brighton S.I. teenagers told emergency service cops, who had been trying for 20 minutes to talk them in from the 18-inch-wide ledge where they sat with their legs dangling. 

    The girls, Carol Hopkins, 17, of 21 Beament Avenue, and Susan Richmond, 16, of 356 Carey Avenue, told their would-be rescuers that they had tried unsuccessfully to gain entrance to the Beatles' 28th-floor suite at the nearby Hotel Warwick, and wouldn't come in unless they could see them. 

    While the crowds on the corner of 53rd Street and Seventh Avenue watched the drama above, a lesser crowd of 200 teens and subteen-age girls tried to generate their own storm by pushing and screaming for their heroes behind police barricades near the Warwick. They were unaware of the activity a block away. 

    On the Americana's roof, emergency service patrolman Richard Powers was trying desperately to get the two skinny blonde girls back to safety. Powers, an 11-year veteran cop, was 39 and looked about 70 as he pleaded with the youngsters. "I have a daughter about your age," he told the girls, whose hysterical sobs were making their position on the ledge even more precarious, "and I'd cry. It would break my heart if my girl was out here like this." But his listeners only shook their heads. Powers got to his knees on the asphalt rooftop. "We'll take you to see them. Just come away from the ledge. I promise you that you'll get to talk to them," he pleaded, although he knew he lied. 

    The girls just sat on the narrow ledge and sobbed. For 20 minutes, the cops scolded, cajoled, and pleaded. Occasionally, Carol would wave a ragged envelope and cry, "I have a letter for Paul, Paul McCartney. I have to give it to him. You wouldn't understand."

     "Nobody understands what they mean to us," Susan blurted out through her tears. "We've just got to see them." 

    On the street, the crowd was getting restless. "Are they gonna jump, or are they gonna keep us here all day?" A white-line barber leaned against a light pole asked. "I'm losing tips staying out here."

     Powers was getting ready with his partner, patrolman Patrick O'Connor, to move in on the girls. Maybe by hopping the three-foot-high guardrail, they could grab the girls before they slipped off. Then a police siren screamed 22 floors below. "It's the Beatles, girls. They've got the Beatles, and they're bringing them up here to see you!" Powers cried out. 

    That did it. Susan and Carol slowly got up, 200 feet above Seventh Avenue. They began combing their hair and putting on fresh lipstick. The cops moved in swiftly, caught the two in their arms, and dragged them back to the precipice. 

    The girls were taken to the hospital where the diagnosis was made, and then to the West 54th Street station to await night court on disorderly conduct charges.

     Meanwhile, the youthful crowd near the Warwick was still screaming. One 13-year-old told a newsman that the "Beatles were really tough. I'd just die to see them up close. I'd just die!"