Explosion at YLS The Yale campus was quiet on the overcast afternoon of Wednesday, May 21, 2003. Most undergraduates had left New Haven for the summer. Yale College seniors, who would graduate the what felt like something very, very heavy being following Monday, were away on Senior Week dropped next to me. I stepped out of the elevator pilgrimages to Myrtle Beach or other southern and turned the corner to the Main Hallway. The air locales. The Yale University Library was already was thick with debris and dust. I couldn’t even see operating on its reduced-hours Summer Recess Room 120, but I did see, across the hallway, a door schedule. Offices and departments were looking that had been partially blown apart. That’s when I forward to the summer lull that punctuates realized there had been an explosion.” the rhythm of the academic year. Associate Dean Ian Solomon ’02, was working in But the Law School, which has a slightly differ- his office on the second floor near the Faculty ent academic calendar from the rest of the Univer- Lounge. He heard the explosion, followed by calls sity, hummed with activity. Professors worked in of “Get out!” from the hallway. He got out, joining their offices. Staff members made preparations for hundreds of YLS staff, faculty, and students who the upcoming Commencement Weekend. Students had also rushed outside as the alarms began to studied in the Dining Hall and Student Lounge; sound. Standing on Wall Street, Solomon heard others were in the computer cluster taking final reports of the explosion and the damage it had exams; still others rushed to finish up their SAWs caused from three people who had been on differ- in the library. ent floors. He figured that, whatever had hap- Suddenly, at about 4:40 p.m., a loud bang. A few pened, it had been significant. His immediate con- seconds later, the building shuddered. cern was “Is everyone out? Is everyone okay?” Sari Bashi ’03 had been in the Dining Hall and The New Haven Fire Department responded was just about to take the Grove Street elevator to within minutes of the explosion. They were the second floor when “I heard a loud boom and joined at the scene by Yale and New Haven Police, 9 |9 YLR Summer 2003 Opposite views of the rooms damaged in the explosion. (this page) Looking from Room 120, past the destroyed wall that used to separate the two rooms, into the Alumni Reading Room.The paintings remain undisturbed on two walls; all of the portraits have since been removed and are being cleaned and restored at an off-site conservation labo- ratory. (opposite) Looking back into Room 120.The door in the lower left corner was partially blown off in the explosion.These pictures were taken after a significant amount of rubble had been cleared away. Connecticut State Police, U.S. Marshals, and agents from the Temporary dormitory space was arranged in Ezra Stiles Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and College, an undergraduate residence hall. A temporary the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In the meantime, news Registrar’s Office was set up in Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona services picked up on the initial reports of the incident, and Hall, so that exams could still be administered for those within half an hour, major national and international students who wished to take them. (Late Wednesday night news outlets were reporting a bombing at Yale Law School. the FBI and ATF escorted members of the Registrar’s Office Families and friends of YLS students, faculty, and staff called into the building to pick up exams, blue books, and other cell phones and sent off “Are you OK?” emails, hoping for supplies.) A temporary website was set up (still viewable at reassuring responses. YLS alumni all over the world called www.yale.edu/law) where the YLS community could receive classmates and colleagues for the latest updates. regular information about the incident. Several chaotic hours passed, while law enforcement per- By 9:00 p.m., members of the YLS community had sonnel secured the building and determined that there had gathered in the Common Room of Ezra Stiles College. been no injuries or casualties as a result of the explosion. Dean Anthony Kronman addressed the shaken group, pro- But relief at this great good fortune turned quickly to con- viding as much in the way of updates and encouragement cern about other pressing issues. The entire Yale Law School as he could. University counselors were also on hand to building was now the scene of a criminal investigation, and provide assistance. More practical aid was available no one was allowed entrance. In their haste to evacuate the in the form of $20 bills that Associate Dean Carroll Stevens building, many had left behind wallets, cell phones, comput- provided to students who had no money. Associate Dean ers, keys, prescription medication, airline tickets home, and Natalia Martín took orders for toothbrushes and other other personal effects. Some students had left in the middle necessities that could be purchased at the 24-hour pharmacy of taking an exam. Students and visitors who lived in the down the street. now-off-limits dormitories and guest suites had no place to Meanwhile, back in the Law School building, Associate stay. Power to the building had been cut following the explo- Dean Mike Thompson, who served as the principle liaison sion, which meant the School’s website wasn’t functioning, between YLS and the criminal investigation, was one of the and students, faculty, and staff couldn’t access the files and first people from the Law School to see the room where the documents stored on the School’s servers. blast occurred. “Room 120 was divided between a part that YLS deans and senior administrative staff and University looked completely undisturbed, as if it had just been set up officials worked late into the night on Wednesday creating for a class, and another part where tables and chairs were a “virtual YLS” while the physical site was unavailable. tossed about and broken,” he recalls. “The most dramatic damage was to the wall that separated representatives on behalf of students Room 120 from the Alumni Reading Room. who had to change their travel plans. I’d say around sixty or seventy percent of YLS Admissions Office personnel fielded the wall had been knocked down, toward calls from concerned admitted students. the Alumni Reading Room. Some of the And as the Command Center got up to portraits that used to hang on that wall lay speed, the Registrar’s Office staff set up on top of the rubble; others were buried in shop across the street in Room 114 of it. The cabinets on the Alumni Reading SSS Hall, distributing, collecting, and Room side of the wall were crushed. In proctoring exams and fielding queries addition, part of the wall had broken off from students about grades and gradua- and fallen down the open stairwell to the tion credits. The Registrar’s Office would lower level of the library.” remain open in this temporary space The explosion also left a pattern of through the weekend. scorch marks on the ceiling and broke some of the overhead lights in Room 120. Work also kept up a hectic A single sprinkler head broke off in the pace back at the Law School, as law explosion, soaking the area. A bank of win- enforcement officials continued their dows in Room 120 also sustained damage. investigation, sifting through rubble and Several stained glass medallions shattered, dusting for fingerprints. And in the in some cases leaving shards of color in upper basement level of the Lillian Gold- their wrought iron frames. man Law Library, a team of seven Univer- sity conservators and Law Librarian Blair At 8:30 a.m. the following Kauffman hurried to transport books morning, another Community meeting from the stacks of the Paskus-Danziger was held in the Stiles Common Room. Rare Book Room, which had been par- YLS staff brought doughnuts and coffee tially flooded when water flowing from and Dean Kronman brought more the broken sprinkler head in Room 120, $20 bills and reassuring words for which is above the Rare Book Room, students anxious about their exams seeped under the floor and onto the and papers, their backpacks and lap- stacks below. The sodden books were tops, their prospective travel plans. taken to a walk-in blast freezer at the Beinecke “Try not to worry,” he said, exhorting Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where they them to keep their spirits up and were flash frozen to minus thirty degrees promising to attempt to accommo- Celsius to prevent any further damage. This date extensions to examination will allow librarians and conservators time to schedules and paper deadlines. determine the proper course for conservation At that same time, a few blocks and repair of each of the affected volumes. away, a core group of about fifteen YLS But the assessment from the experts is that staffers were setting up a Command no book was damaged beyond repair. Gisela Center in a special office space, Noack, chief conservator of the University provided by University Secretary Library, says “We got to it quickly, and kept Linda Koch Lorimer ’77, on the second the damage to a minimum... Overall it was floor of Woolsey Hall. There was much a satisfying and successful operation.” to do. One person finalized arrange- ments for students to make use The looming question on of Yale School of Management com- Thursday and Friday was where the Law puters.