BY JEFFERSON SIEGEL | An admirer intent on meeting real estate mogul and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump brought Midtown Manhattan to a standstill last Wednesday.
Traffic didn’t stall at the shock of someone in Manhattan actually supporting Trump. Instead, crowds gathered because the man, identified by police as Stephen Rogata, 19, of Great Falls, Virginia, chose to climb the outside of Trump Tower in hopes of meeting his hero.
News reports said his birth name is Michael Joseph Ryan, but that he recently changed his name.
The day before, after posting a YouTube video describing himself as an independent researcher seeking a “private audience” with the candidate, Rogata drove to Manhattan, spending the night on the Lower East Side at the swank Bowery Hotel.
Carrying a backpack, the long-haired Rogata, wearing shorts and a green T-shirt, walked into the glitzy building at midafternoon and made his way to a fifth-floor outdoor space. Unpacking four large suction cups and two long straps, he began climbing the sloping enclosure on the building’s east side before beginning his nearly three-hour vertical ascent.
Around 3:30 p.m., a 911 call of a possible jumper at the building brought emergency vehicles to Fifth Ave.
Police shut down E. 56th St. between Madison and Fifth Ave. Giant yellow airbags were inflated on 56th St. and on a building setback. Barricades along Madison Ave. were soon packed with crowds, their cell phone cameras pointed skyward at the unfolding spectacle.
Rogata slowly rose along the dark glass wall, moving first to the southeast, out of reach of Emergency Service Unit police who had extended a ladder across the top of an atrium.
The 58-story building’s sealed windows left police little opportunity to snag the ascending alpinist. Their first attempt involved cutting through metal ventilation grates. But once he saw the E.S.U. officers’ distinctive blue helmets above him, Rogata changed course, moving horizontally to a southern wall of the building.
Rogata could be seen wiping each surface before slamming a suction cup against the glass to guarantee a tight seal.
After Rogata turned the corner, police several floors up broke one of the double-paned windows. A large piece narrowly missed him as shards of glass fell to the street below.
Two officers then descended in a window washers’ scaffold, stopping three floors directly above Rogata — but, seeing no way to grab him, they soon returned to the roof.
Despite occasional gasps and cheers from the crowd below, Rogata never appeared to lose his grip or slip from the straps.
As he reached the 18th floor, a large window several floors above began shaking. It appeared police might also break through that window. But moments later, glaziers who had been brought in to help remove the large window and an adjacent pane.
Seeing his upward progress thwarted, Rogata moved further to the building’s south side, but by then the window washers’ basket had returned to block him.
Rogata continued climbing along the building’s wall and was soon within easy reach of police at the now-open 21st-floor window.
A half-dozen officers watched as Rogata came even with them. As two officers reached out to snag him, Rogata made a last grab of the building’s corner before finally being pulled inside. Crowds cheered as Rogata’s flailing legs followed his body inside.
“When [the opportunity] presented itself, I reached out, took hold of his hand and I said, ‘Sir, come with me,’ ” said Detective Christopher Williams of E.S.U., one of the officers who pulled Rogata inside.
Rogata was taken out the building’s Fifth Ave. entrance on a stretcher for transport to Bellevue Hospital, where he remained for observation over the weekend. He was charged with reckless endangerment and criminal trespass.
