Genevieve Gronemeyer, who works several blocks south of where a gunman opened fire in midtown Manhattan on Monday, said business in the area appeared to be back to normal Wednesday. albeit with a visible increase in security in her office.Credit: Ed Quinn
ByMercedes Hamiltonmercedes.hamilton@newsday.comUpdated July 31, 2025 8:11 am
Grace Dirig said she was walking along Park Avenue in midtown Manhattan on Monday evening when strangers rushed by and warned in hushed tones: An active shooter is nearby. The scare triggered memories of a school shooting Dirig lived through as a child, and she instinctively ran to a nearby restaurant to take cover.
“It was one of those moments where you don’t really know what’s happening, but you know something is happening,” said Dirig, 28.
Dirig was one of countless workers in and around midtown Monday after the shooter, later identified as 27-year-old Shane Tamura, of Las Vegas, had barged into the 44-story tower at 345 Park Ave.
He fatally shot four people and wounded a fifth before killing himself. The aftermath of the shooting has left office security managers reassessing how to keep employees safe.
Despite the scare, Dirig said she doesn’t feel any less safe walking around midtown for her pharmaceutical job than she had before. There’s always something happening in New York City, she said, and she’s always watching for suspicious behavior and keeping track of exit points.
And anyway, she said, she feels safer in midtown than elsewhere in the city.
Mass shootings at workplaces are rare in New York City, but not unheard of, and have typically involved shooters with a grudge, including a disgruntled physician who once worked at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital who opened fire there in 2017, killing another doctor and injuring six other people before killing himself. In 2012, a fired employee at the Empire State Building ambushed and shot dead an ex-coworker; responding police officers killed him and in the process struck nine bystanders.
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Last December, another homicide in midtown — the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, allegedly by Luigi Mangione, 27, of Maryland — shared similar traits with Monday’s attack. Investigators said both men held grudges against large corporations, traveled long distances before the attacks and left lengthy manifestos explaining their actions.
There were 458 homicides at workplaces in 2023, according to the most recent statistics available from the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Genevieve Gronemeyer, 30, works several blocks south of 345 Park Ave. and happened to be working from home in Brooklyn on Monday when she was notified that her office building went into lockdown. While she said business in the area appears to be back to normal, there’s a clear increase in security in her office.
“There’s twice as many people working the lobby floor.
You can tell they’re a bit jittery when people walk through the door, which is totally understandable,” she said.
Ryan Lynch, 42, of the Bronx, was also at home at the time of the shooting, but he regularly travels to midtown for his job as a developer. To him, Lynch said, the shooting wasn’t a surprise.
Though he called it jarring to see the gunman walking through midtown carrying an AR-15-style rifle, he said it hasn’t made him feel any more unsafe. Violence happens across the boroughs, whether it’s high-profile incidents like this or daily gang activity, he said.
Source: Newsday_Com
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