NYU Suicide Student Was Upstate NY Resident

The local papers have some details about the NYU sophomore who was found dead in his dorm room Friday night. Police says 19-year-old Pranay Angara suffocated himself with a plastic bag.

Angara, who is from Hopewell Junction in upstate New York, lived in the Water Street dorm at 200 Water Street in the Financial District. The police say he wrote a note for his family and that he pushed a dresser in front of the door.

NYU issued a statement saying, "The NYU community extends its sympathy to the family and loved ones of this young man." Earlier, NYU had waited until Saturday to tell other Water Street residents and explained to the Washington Square News that it did not send an NYU community-wide email to respect Angara's parents wishes for privacy. However, some NYU students and parents have been debating whether the university is responsible to let students - and their parents - know about campus deaths.

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By Jen Chung in News on November 13, 2007 5:11 AM

Comments [rss]

angry_pickle

Poor kid. Coming to NYU, paying what $20K/semester, and realizing that he was tricked into going there, that despite having millions of people, it is one of the loneliest places to be in the US, and all the brochures and books about NYC were churned out by the world's best marketing machine.

smitty

I live in upstate New York. You may have heard of my town - Yonkers.

Dave Hogarty

As someone who grew up in Hopewell Junction, which is a town that is a subset of East Fishkill, I can assure everyone that "upstate" is a fair description. Granted, it's only about 70 miles from the city; and yes, there's hourly train service to GCT. The fact, however, that one can view fields filled with cows a half mile from the town center's traffic light, and that one is a thousand times more likely to hit a deer than a pedestrian while driving makes Hopewell Junction "upstate."