Hockinson group caught up in real-life NYC drama

HOCKINSON — Several Hockinson High School drama students and their chaperones got more excitement than they’d counted on during a five-day stay in New York City.

Saturday evening found the party of 27 locked down in the Planet Hollywood restaurant on Times Square for two extra hours while police and bomb squads swarmed a suspicious black SUV parked just down the block.

Any frustration over missing a sixth Broadway play — seeing “The Lion King” and visiting with cast members afterward — quickly became gratitude the group wasn’t caught up in a horrific terror act.

It was only later the Hockinson group would learn, as did the world, that explosives in the vehicle could have killed or injured hundreds of tourists and theatergoers who had jammed the iconic Big Apple hot spot.

“It’s kind of scary,” said Courtney Lemos, 16, a sophomore. “What if it had been really serious, and the bomb had detonated just outside our restaurant?”

Actually, the suspicious vehicle was parked nearly as close to the Minskoff Theatre, where the group was headed, as it was to Planet Hollywood’s ground-floor entrance.

By 6:30 p.m., police had rushed to the site.

Barely 30 minutes before, the Hockinson group had rendezvoused on the sidewalk near the corner of Broadway and 45th Street. Another half-hour, and they would have been hiking right past the SUV.

“You realize you were right there, where something could have happened,” said Sandra Yager, principal at Hockinson High and one of the chaperones. “Honestly, you feel pretty blessed.”

Familiar feel

In truth, by the time students had been led out a back exit into eerily vacant streets, after they’d spotted the crisis response from a restaurant window, there was a sense of the familiar.

“It felt like an episode of “24,” Lemos said.

Vanessa Keller, 17, a Hockinson junior and drama colleague, was reminded of deserted-Manhattan scenes from the film “I Am Legend,” she said.

Saturday had been another whirlwind day for the visitors. The group included Hockinson theater instructor Charlie Jackam, art teacher Russ Ford and a pair of art students who enjoyed the plays but skipped three acting workshops the others attended. Each had paid his or her own way for the long-planned trip.

That afternoon, members had peeled apart for the first time to watch their pick of discounted matinee shows.

They reunited, then sat in an upstairs eating area of Planet Hollywood, oblivious to the emergency outside. The restaurant was “noisy” and cheerful, students said.

About 7 p.m., Yager helped lead a small group downstairs to the gift shop, only to find its metal curtain shuttered. And no-nonsense police on the scene directed patrons back upstairs. Outside, the streets had been cleared.

Long wait

What followed was two hours of frustration.

Via police, restaurant workers explained a suspicious vehicle had triggered the lockdown. Eventually the word “bomb” emerged.

But there was never a serious feel of danger, the Hockinson students and Yager said. Servers brought free sodas, serenaded other patrons with birthday songs and exuded calm.

Those with cell phones scoured the Internet for updates, but found little fresh news.

Energy waned. Led by a savvy tour guide, the group had hustled all week from stop to stop. They’d seen the plays, “The Addams Family,” “Wicked,” “Mama Mia!” and “West Side Story.” They’d toured Radio City Music Hall.

“We were exhausted, running on fumes,” Keller said.

Students fussed over missing “The Lion King,” the culmination of their trip. Some worried they would spend the whole night there, rather than return to their New Jersey hotel.

Some patrons grew upset about missed airline flights and other connections, as time ticked past, Keller said.

Around 8 o’clock, Planet Hollywood announced that all nearby Broadway shows were canceled.

That eased the stress level for the Hockinson group, at least: This was one time the show wouldn’t go on, after all.

‘Amazing’ police

It would be another hour until the tour guide led the group out of the restaurant via a nondescript rear alley.

“The magic was gone,” Yager said, with a laugh. The party looped around the cordoned blocks to reach the Port Authority terminal and their shuttle bus back to New Jersey.

Meanwhile, Yager and others voiced nothing but awe for rapid, decisive police work.

“If you look at the amount of people on the street a half-hour before, you couldn’t have imagined how fast they evacuated it. It was amazing … kind of surreal,” Yager said. “It makes you realize how prepared they really are to respond to situations, now.”

When Lemos finally reached her parents back home, they were “freaked out,” she said. Television newscasts at the hotel underscored the severity of the episode.

Even so, the group didn’t blink at taking the ferry to Ellis Island the next day, their last in New York.

They toured Lincoln Center and even had a chance encounter with hot young actor Jesse Eisenberg (of the movie, “Zombieland”) and a peek at Alec Baldwin onstage.

They walked from Battery Park to see Ground Zero and later toured Chinatown, before jetting home late Sunday.

“It was really fun,” said Lemos, who, like Keller, had visited the city before. Yager, who tagged along on a similar trip in 2007, also has no regrets.

“It’s a great city. I love it,” she said. “It was an amazing week.”

Howard Buck: 360-735-4515 or howard.buck@columbian.com.