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A group from the finance firm Blackstone gathered for a mixer off the lobby of 345 Park Avenue on Monday evening. Across the big, airy space a Blackstone senior executive, Wesley LePatner, 43, was passing through after a day of meetings upstairs. She was a mentor to young women who oversaw a real estate team that had injected tens of billions of dollars into their portfolio.
A busy Monday, nearing its end.
There was the lobby’s security guard — friendly and popular. He stepped outside every day to buy a lottery ticket from the news stand on Lexington Avenue. Today’s my day, he would joke with the young vendor. I’ll win big and solve all my problems.
Darin Laing, 37, in finance, passed him by as he left with a colleague to grab a quick dinner across the street.
None of them noticed a dark BMW pull up on Park Avenue and double park. The driver stepped out. It was a hot day, the beginning of a heat wave that gripped the city. So the lobby’s big blinds were lowered against the sun, masking his approach to the building.
Just before 6:30 p.m., the driver, a slim young man wearing sunglasses, entered the lobby with an assault rifle in his right hand.
Much would be learned about that man in the hours and days to follow — and about the four others who would ultimately lose their lives. But at that moment and for a long stretch that followed, he was an anonymous, terrifying, unfolding threat. One that New Yorkers have seen play out all over America, and now had come to their door.
