Teens commit nighttime library heist as part of reading program

Written by Trent Thompkins, intern with The Messenger

A burglary was committed at the Troy Public Library Thursday night, but it’s not what you might think.

For the first time, the library put into play its new ‘Tower Heist’ interactive puzzle. The Heist was designed as a super secret covert mission to storm the halls of the library and retrieve a precious golden Faberge egg.

The nighttime event was part of the teen summer reading program at the library.

The teens, wide-eyed in amazement, keenly set their sights on the grand prize located at the top of the stairwell.

Five teams of about five people took turns to see who could decode all of the clues and scale up to the top of the library to retrieve the egg in the fastest amount of time.

Library Youth Director Teresa Colvin, recorded the times of the different teams.

“We combine the time from their downstairs’ adventure with the upstairs,” she said, speaking of the different feats each team had to overcome to win.

Soobin Park, 15, loved the mystery aspect of the game.

“At the bottom floor, we had to solve a puzzle. Afterwards, we had to figure out who stole a painting, similar to a murder mystery,” she said.

Other obstacles included players having to evade booby traps and bypassing crisscrossed tape made to resemble laser technology usually only seen in spy movies.

The winning team was in for a big surprise after earning their prized egg. Colvin revealed to the winners that inside the beautiful egg was $100 for the teammates to divide.

“This was our first year doing this, and I think it went well,” Colvin said.

“We plan on doing this again for the adults to participate in, bigger and better,” Library Director, William White said about plans of expanding the event.

White also revealed other future plans for adults in the coming months.

“We plan on having a Gatsby party in September,” he said of the event themed after the acclaimed novel-turned-movie, The Great Gatsby. “I think they’ll enjoy that.”