The New York City office building where a gunman fatally shot four people and himself reopened Monday, one week after the deadly rampage.

Workers returned to 345 Park Ave., in Midtown Manhattan under the watchful eyes of NYPD officers and a surplus of additional security following the mass shooting.

According to investigators, gunman Shane Tamura was targeting the National Football League headquarters when he unloaded 47 rounds from an assault rifle, killing four people, including an off-duty NYPD officer, before turning the gun on himself.

"People find this to be a little bit of a surreal experience"  

Many companies inside the building, which is owned by Rudin Management, left it up to employees to decide whether they were ready to return on Monday. The NFL told its employees to work remotely until the end of the week, and Blackstone officials said their workers were given the option to work from home.

"You think about your family. You think about your loved ones. You think about the lives that were lost and all the fear that came to us on Monday. But, again, we are here and it feels so much better to be in the office today to kind of go through this together," Blackstone employee Erma Hernandez said.

"People find this to be a little bit of a surreal experience, but we're trying to work through it," building employee George Letterman said.

One woman said she did not realize 345 Park Ave., was the site of the shooting when she went to the bank there on Monday.

"If I had known it was this branch I wouldn't have gone in," the customer said. 

"[It's] different, sort of like a 9/11-ish feel," one building employee said. "To go into an office building right now is really difficult. I just think there was some breakdown in protocol."

Building employees remember the shooting victims

The shooting victims were identified as NYPD Det. Didarul Islam, Blackstone executive Wesley LePatner, Rudin Management employee Julia Hyman and security officer Aland Etienne. LaPatner, Hyman and Islam were laid to rest last week. Etienne's funeral will be held on Saturday. An NFL employee who was shot is still recovering and is said to be stable and improving.

"I just feel sad, you know. That's really what I feel at this point in time. Just very sad for all the innocent lives lost," a man who works at the Bank of America on the ground floor said. "It's not going to feel the same because now every time that you walk by here now, it's just, unfortunately, stained." 

He added that his colleagues had helped one of the shooting victims open a bank account.

Newsstand owner Jubel Ahmed said Etienne was a customer who regularly bought lotto tickets and recently came close to winning. He said Etienne told him he had two jobs. "That's why he told me, 'One day, I will hit big and I will win.' He's a very good person, very good person."

St. Bartholomew's Church, next door to 345 Park Ave., raised a banner offering its support to workers still healing from the trauma inflicted by the shooting.

"We are here for you," the banner reads, a small comfort amid unimaginable grief.

An evening interfaith prayer service was held at the church to remember those who never made it home from work on July 28 and provide comfort and healing to those who did.

"I think we had to come together and make sure the memory isn't forgotten and we can go on every single day to do the things we come here to do," one person said.

"I work at the building. I wasn't there, but it was a lovely remembrance for four people I didn't know but are with me now," Heather Fennell said.

NYC looking into gun-detection tech, deputy mayor says

New York City Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Kaz Daughtry said the city is looking at gun-detection technology that could prevent a similar shooting from ever happening again.

"The doors would have been locked and the sirens would have went off and it would have given our officers a little more time to react," Daughtry said of the technology. "It would have given the security officer at the front desk the time to follow his protocols, where he could have pressed that emergency button to recall all the elevators to the first floor."

However, Daughtry says once the technology is identified, it would take months before it could be implemented because of the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology Act, which was enacted in 2020 to increase transparency and oversight of the NYPD's surveillance technology.

"The 90-day period is a 45-day comment period and 45-day response period. It doesn't have to take 90 days. It could take a lot less," New York City Councilmember Jennifer Gutierrez said. "As the chair of the Technology Committee, I'm a little apprehensive about the police department moving forward or workshopping another tool similar to what evolved in the subway stations."