The Written Podcast: New York (Part 8) – Two Differing Styles of Security Checks

Both the Freedom Tower and the Empire State Building have security checks synonymous to those checks in airports, where you’re required to put your personal belongings and any technologies in trays and have them X-rayed scanned for any anomalies. Then, you’re required to walk through a metal detector to see if you’re carrying anything you shouldn’t. If the scanner does detect something strange, you’re pulled to one side and searched manually by a security officer. Luckily, that didn’t happen to me. I went through all three security checks without hassle: the airport’s, the Freedom Tower’s, and the Empire State Building’s.

So, what, you’re probably thinking, are the two different security checks in three different buildings. What changes is tactics used by the people who check your bag manually. In the Freedom Tower, it was purely done by technology, whereas whilst the airport also used X-ray they incorporated manual bag checking just before getting on your plane for extra thoroughness. The Empire State Building did both as well, but instead of only manually checking if there is anomaly, they make a point of searching through the bag as well, as if they don’t trust technology as well as they do their own eye, which makes sense considering the Empire State Building has been open to the public since before the use of X-ray machines for security checks.

I still haven’t answered the question, though, have I? The Freedom Tower made a point of searching through someone’s bag by quite literally pulling out each individual item to make sure it’s nothing noteworthy before putting it all back. The airport did the same thing; they made sure to check if my glasses case was a threat. The Empire State Building, on the other hand, did something I wasn’t expecting. After the airport the previous day and the Freedom Tower a couple of hours ago, the Empire State Building would’ve been my third security check in the span of two days, so I was getting used to how things worked. Upon entering the Empire State Building, I prepared for them to be as thorough as the last two checks were, especially with my bag. The X-ray didn’t show up anything, and it was now to move on to the manual search before finally being allowed to roam free. An elderly gentleman greeted me and asked to open my bag – not place the bag on the table, open it yourself, and step away, but simply open my bag so he could have a look inside. Compared to the last two security checks, this man only but glanced within my bag, nodded with approval and sent me on my way. He glanced inside my bag. He didn’t even shuffle anything around to see if anything was hiding underneath something else, but simply glanced inside the bag that I was still wearing, and then sent me on my way. I was quite surprised, you can imagine.

Those are the two differing styles of security checks: The thorough check, and the glanced check. For a building that makes a point of doing two official checks instead of only having to do the manual one if anything strange shows up on the X-ray, that glance made the manual check seem a little pointless. When I got back to my hotel room, a thought came to me. That glance was all that elderly gentleman needed, because he’s probably been at the Empire State Building since before the X-ray machines were fitted, and so has honed his skill of checking the bag to the point where he’d be able to spot a needle in a hay stack from twenty paces away. If there was anything strange in my bag, he would’ve spotted it. It’s only as modern technology has developed and people are relying more and more heavily on the X-ray machine that they haven’t developed the pinpoint precision of detecting the anomaly as that experienced gentleman has. They have to look at everything, whereas he doesn’t. Dare I say, but that’s another bullet point added to the ongoing argument on whether technology is overtaking us. From that experienced gentleman, it certainly has. I can imagine him outwitting the X-ray machine itself.

The view from the Empire State Building was phenomenal, and I made sure to take the picture I wanted, looking out across to the Freedom Tower. Seeing New York City from above once more, but from a different perspective, highlighted what makes Manhattan famous. I saw the entirety of Central Park – it’s truly amazing just how big it really is.

It still amuses me how seemingly un-thorough that security guard was, yet I have no doubt could run rings around those who make a point of being extra thorough by flicking through someone’s notebook just to make sure if a civilian hidden something between the pages; just to make sure that one civilian tourist had cut out a knife shape hole in the middle of the notebook to make sure it closes properly without there being a noticeable hump in the middle.

What I knew when I was thinking back to those two differing styles of security checks is that when it’s my time to be processed through the airport checks once more before hopping on my plane back to the UK, is it won’t be as simple as a quick, experienced, glance as I hoped them to be.

Here is the picture from the Empire State Building looking over to The Freedom Tower.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)