Ok, so I heard this story about a Vietnam Veteran storming into a Chessie board meeting of sorts on the 42nd floor conference room of Cleveland's Terminal Tower in 1976. The story goes that this resulted in the closure of the observation deck. Is this sotry true?
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Chessie Conference Room Story, Cleveland, 1976
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Moderator: railohio
All too true. His name was Ashby Leach and, as I recall, he was an ex-C&O employee. He was armed and wanted to talk about something concerning veterans' employment on the C&O, with Hays Watkins, Chessie's president at the time. Watkins was away, but Leach took some hostages. I think he may have gotten only as far as the 32nd floor, where you had to change elevators to go further up to the C&O's executive offices and the observation deck. Bob McGowan, a Chessie VP (and a burly ex-football player) came down to negotiate and managed to calm the situation. Afterward all the floors above the 32nd were closed to the public, and two B&O plainclothes cops from Akron were posted to screen visitors.