Midtown bank alarm rings for 3 hours, nothing taken
The vault was sealed, the cash was counted twice, and the only thing out of place was a note on the manager's desk that read "sorry, wrong building."
A burglar alarm at a bank branch on Sixth Avenue rang from 4:10 a.m. to 7:15 a.m. on Saturday, loud enough to wake a hotel across the street and long enough that two patrol cars, a fire truck and the bank's regional security chief all arrived before anyone could turn it off.
Nothing was taken. The vault was sealed. The cash drawers were counted twice and came up correct to the dollar. The only thing police found out of place was a sheet of paper on the branch manager's desk, torn from a notepad, that read: "sorry, wrong building."
Three hours
The alarm was triggered by a motion sensor in the second-floor corridor. The bank's security company called the branch manager, who was asleep in New Jersey, and then the police, who arrived at 4:22 a.m. to find every door locked and every window intact.
"We walked around it twice," an officer said. "There was nothing to see. There was a lot to hear."
The security company could not silence the alarm remotely, and the only person with the override code was the manager, who was by then on the turnpike. He arrived at 7:09 a.m. The alarm stopped at 7:15.
“Three hours. I have guests who checked out at 5 a.m. just to get away from it.”
Night manager, hotel across the street
The note
The note is handwritten, in block capitals, on paper that police say matches a pad on the manager's own desk. Detectives have not said how it got there. They have also not said how anyone got into a second-floor corridor without opening a door or a window, though the officer who walked the building twice noted that "the skylight looked fine, but then, it would."
Wrong building
The branch sits next door to a jeweler's wholesale office that was, by coincidence or not, the subject of a tip to the NYPD on Friday about a planned break-in. The jeweler's office was not touched on Saturday night. Its owner told the Bugle he "slept great" and declined to say anything else.
The bank has said it will review its alarm procedures and issue a new override code to "more than one person in more than one state." The hotel across the street has offered its guests a free night. The Bugle has its own theory about who writes apologies in block capitals and enters buildings through skylights, and will be sharing it on Monday, in block capitals.