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Early this morning we received an email from an NYU student who was studying at Bobst Library. He told us that around 4:30 a.m. he heard a "huge boom" that ended up being a successful suicide attempt. He told us the "kid must have jumped from high judging from where he landed in the lobby. Couldn't tell his condition from what I saw. I was told by a cop on the scene that he didn't look good."
The NYPD confirmed that a male did jump, and is now deceased, and we are waiting for NYU spokesman John Beckman's statement about the incident. After 9 a.m., Washington Square News reported that Bobst had reopened, and tours are still being conducted.
Back in 2003 and 2004 there were multiple suicides in the library, which led to the installation of panels on the inner balconies to prevent further attempts.
UPDATE: NYU President Sexton has sent out an email to students that you can read here. And NYU Spokesman John Beckman has sent us the following statement (which is continued after the jump).
“The death of a College of Arts and Science junior early this morning in Bobst Library is a matter of great sorrow for the NYU community. In a close-knit community of young people such as ours, the death of a fellow student is always keenly felt. While the cause of this death is still being determined, indications are that he took his own life."
“Suicide among college age men and women is a national problem and a leading cause of death. In spite of the extensive systems NYU has in place to support the health and mental health of students - a highly-regarded 24-hour hotline called the Wellness Exchange; a model health center with doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors; constant reminders to students on the availability of help - we are not immune to this national challenge.We have reminded all students again today of availability of counseling and other types of assistance through NYU’s Wellness Exchange at 212-443-9999 (or 999 from any campus phone), and we have reinforced that as a community we need to look out for one another and never hesitate to offer a helping hand or attentive ear.
The University has been in touch with the family to convey the condolences of the NYU community; our thoughts and prayers are with the family, friends, and loved ones of this young man. The family has asked that it be accorded the greatest possible privacy and sensitivity in this time of mourning, and we would hope that everyone would respect its wishes.”
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Is the Library open at 4:30? When I used the Bobst back in the 1980s it was not open 24 hours. If there was a suicide there early this morning, I do NOT mean to disrespect the young man in any way. I just do not always trust the factual truth of this site.
I think the computers and study lounges are always open, but the stacks close at 11pm regularly and perhaps later during finals.
The stacks get locked at some point. However, as far as I know, the elevators are never shut down or locked. The way the upper floors are laid out is that the elevators open to the hallways overlooking the open space, and the doors leading to the stacks from that hallway are locked.
But now that I think about it, even if the elevators are shut down, there are no doors or gates preventing anyone from taking the stairs up to the top floor hallways.
I believe the stacks are locked, but the study lounges in the basement are open 24 hours. Ugh this poor kid... I can't imagine what drove him to take his own life.
Guitar Hero finals.....
bad taste I know. I blame NYU.
There is also this choice sentence in Sexton's message (which wasn't reproduced above):
The impulse for self-harm -- particularly among young men and women
with so much talent and so much to live for -- is incomprehensible to me.
If you make a $1 million+ a year in pay without the associated stress, it indeed would seem incomprehensible.
In a close-knit community of young people such as ours
I guess he couldn't come up with any other positive adjective to attach to "community" so he just went with the laughable "close-knit".
Doesn't nyu have a rather high suicide rate to begin with?
Would you commit suicide if you find out you can't pay back $100,000 in loans on top of your daily credit card bills, not being able to find that high paying job when your about to graduate and lacking any type of health insurance. Or it might be the drugs. Just a guess.
at $50,000 a year, make that grand total up to and over $200,000. that is if mommy and daddy aren't footing the bill.
What is this bizarre hate for people paying for their kids to go to school? I mean, isn't that what parents do? They save money to get their kids through school and into the world..?
I mean, yeah, I get pissed out of jealousy occasionally, but really, grow up.
You can't say "where were there parents?" all the time and then pull this "unless mommy and daddy paid for it" bullshit.
there have been a few suicides in succession at NYU, which draws a lot of attention and media, but if you look at statistics, colleges generally have a pretty high suicide rate. its the second leading cause of death in college age kids country wide.
NYU's suicide rate is zero, until something like this happens. I was a student there in 2003 when a couple people jumped from Bobst, and they installed plexiglass on every ledge. Guess if you're desperate enough, you can get around anything.
For those unfamiliar with the layout, the library stacks are situated around a large open square, so if one wanted to commit suicide, they could go to an upper floor and jump into the open middle area. But I was sure they installed plexiglass after that year NYU had like 6 suicides.
@Shermanator:
Bobst's lower levels are open 24 hours; the stacks are closed after 1AM or so. Still, there isn't much stopping you from going up the stairs to the floors above the atrium and wandering around the balconies. They've put up transparent barriers around the railings on all levels, but they always seemed pretty flimsy. I don't think it would be difficult for a student to jump if he had made up his mind.
Really sad. Even with everything NYU does to try and make sure everyone can find their niche (and it does do a lot), this happens every year.
best protest against bloomber if i ever saw one!!!
Suicide = a permanent solution to a temporary problem. :(
you're a fool to call something that leads a person to commit suicide a "temporary problem". Anyone who has battled depression - deep, dark depression that makes one consider suicide - will tell you it's not temporary.
Well EXCUUUUUSE me!
I didn't know you knew the young man.
I did know a brilliant, talented, handsome, wealthy, wonderful young man with everything to live for who killed himself at age 23 probably due to his struggle to accept that he was gay. I think if he had managed to live another year or two, it would have been all right. But what do I know!
What do you know, indeed.
David Foster Wallace, who committed suicide last year, wrote this about what intense depression was like:
i was in the library this morning when it happened and what i found to be equally disturbing was the lack of care extended to the nyu students present. i believe most people became aware of what happen as it was so loud even shaking the part of the building i was in. and, it seems there was at least one witness. however, noone came and talked to the students or even acknowledge what we knew had happened. experience the death of another person can be a trauma-inducing experience. failing to provide a forum to address these issues can cost lives. i am very disappointed, nyu. you can do better. time to get a better plan in action.
Probably weren't a whole lot of counselors around at 4:30 in the morning. Call student health services and tell them your psyche was injured.
@girlnextdoor I'm sorry you had to experience that. I just wanted to let you know that a counseling service is currently available in the conference room near the reference desk on the ground floor.
why is nyu responsible, they should have some sort of suicide swat team on call 24/7 ready with teddy bears & tissues?
time to toughen up or run back home to mommy and daddy in ohio. if you witnessed a car accident on canal street what would you do? expect someone from NYU to hotfoot it over there to give you a hug? get real...
this is nyc, this shit happens everyday all over the city.
just dont forget to vote for bloombucks he feels your pain kiddo...
you have smoked yourself retarded.
Do not feed the troll, sir.
thanks potsmoker,
actually, i'm a social worker with about 15 years experience working with families and children. it only takes a few minutes to ask someone how they are doing and let them know where to go if they need help. that's all i'm saying. most of the students in the lab appeared very young and sleep-deprived from studying. school can be a very taxing experience. their background is unimportant to me...their health and well-being is. perhaps you should go take another toke and get a little less bitter.
Go choke yourself on a can of Pringles, loser.
i guess the reasons weren't because bloomjerk is going to be a shoo-in for re-election against that puppet weakling nerd thompson or because the phillys will take the series in game 7.
just because claire bennett can do it, dosen't mean you can too.
I graduated from NYU in 2003 and the library was opened 24 hours (stacks close late, the rest of the library-lower levels stay open). Not the first suicide, not the last...
Based on how NYU treats students of color, I'm surprised there aren't more of those suicides.
How does NYU treat students of color?
Now I'm interested to hear about this end as well, since I myself as well as my current roommate were both minority students at NYU.
I can go on about the horrible red tape that school created for EVERYONE...not just minorities.
as a minority student right now, i dont see much disadvantage except not dorming really.
It's always 'fall' semester at the Bobst...
that was pretty funny
RIP NYU student
Tasteless but funny.
NYU's suicide rate is actually slightly lower than the national college average. As other posters say, college is where a lot of suicides occur. Most of the kids are out of their parents' homes for the first times in their lives, and they are forced to adjust to really abrupt changes in their lives without the support of their old social networks. They also have to deal with adult problems for the first time in their lives, and they are at an age when mental problems such as schizophrenia first manifest themselves. So there isn't much that colleges can do to prevent 100% of suicides. NYU puts a lot of effort into ensuring that students have someone to turn to when they are in trouble. I wouldn't blame the university for this--if you want to kill yourself, you'll find a way.
@anonymous (commenter 27):
I'm not sure if any statistics are published on the suicide rates at colleges and universities. Suffice it to say, that colleges ARE vulnerable for several reasons. And, there have been several high-profile suicides at NYU in recent years, most of which involved the highly-lethal jump in the library. I would not want to be the director of health and mental health at NYU, but I am sure the university has done all it can do to make quality mental health services available to its students. A large, decentralized university in a big city is a set-up for depersonalization and isolation among depressed students.
Certainly, this issue needs to be examined closely. I agree, however, the university bears little liability in this case.
In any case, this is a tragedy both for the student involved and his family. I would never want to get a call that my son, attending college, had ended his life.
Official statistics may not be published, but university administrations certainly keep track of them. You can also find some limited information in reputable academic publications. A quote from the Chronicle of Higher Education (Feb. 2000): "By Eric Plosky's count, at least 16 students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have committed suicide in the past 15 years... M.I.T. has about 9,900 undergraduate and graduate students, which means its suicide rate is near the national average for Americans age 15 to 24 (approximately 1.1 per 10,000)."
Given this, a college of NYU's size can expect about 3/year, and they haven't been anywhere near that for the past few years.
it is all just very sad. this person must have been in extreme pain to take such action.
This is sad.
I recently went back to school and was impressed by the efforts my school's health service made at orientation to encourage students to come in and talk if they were having mental or stress-related problems.
Rest in peace
What does Sexton mean by "close knit community"?
I just don't know about that. Then again he does understand exactly what the students want, so...
Get the information out there, make it available, make it more acceptable/easy to seek help among students, know the statistics, make an effort to reach out, stop making Plexiglas excuses.
My condolences to the family and friends.
Godspeed to the poor fellow who died this morning. His friends and family are surely devestated. What a sad day which will forever be in their memory. And to the students who witnessed or heard the fall... what a horrible experience.
One question - Did they really continue tours this morning? Of the library?
They definitely continued tours. Here are some photos, along with the email that went out to the tour guides.
i think georgina was behind it, blair had no part in this.
"...ended up being a successful suicide attempt"
Jen, try using a thesaurus once in a while. I realize your beat is mostly covering the "exclusive" Williamsburg parties that you get invited to thanks to your job, but a little sensitivity wouldn't hurt here.
Just call it what it is; a suicide, a tragedy or simply "a death". If you're worth your salary as a writer you should know that a suicide is not something that should be written about in such a casual tone. It's mightily insensitive at worst and lazy writing at best to employ the term "success" when describing someone who ended their own life in such a remarkably horrific way.
Of course it was a "successful" death. Obviously that was the point.
A heart felt suggestion for the Mental Health Director at NYU or other top administrators such as president Saxton, or Director of Student Affairs:
How about
1) having a jump-watch-person at the library 24 hours a day.
2) separating the floors in the library in some fashion, way and shape to make jumping impossible.
3) locating the office of one or more mental health personnel in the library (accessible to kids under pressure) on a walk in basis and open from midnight until early morning.
4) you might reduce your library suicide rate to zero.
5) One suicide is one too many for any campus.
6) nothing is impossible.
If a depressed individual wants to end it all, they will always find a way. The Bobst thing is just ritualistic, because of all the high profile suicides there. What you're suggesting won't end these suicides, but it might shift them away from that building; in essence, repairing the reputation of a library building.
(3) is the most reasonable suggestion but NYU will probably just close off the library stairs after hours since it is cheaper.
They should just fill the ground level with foam blocks and colorful balls.
I don't know if you've ever been in Bobst, but the barriers on every floor except for the 2nd foor are over 10 feet high.
Are you really suggesting that "reorganize" floors? How do you suggest they do that?
You act as if this persons suicide is due to negligence on behalf of NYU, not the troubled state of mind of the poor kid who jumped.
At NYU we have services on hand at ALL TIMES for students in crisis, whether or not they choose to go this route is up to them. It's seems almost impossible for any student to be here 3 years and not unaware of our student counseling centers.
Except when I was there people also mentioned to jump off the buildings including 1.) a dorm and 2.) an actual school building....they've tried covering every single possibility...including having security guards sit by themselves at the top of each dorm every night. They installed around 10 ft plexiglass walls in that library.
Oh and the one involving a plastic bag over a head as well as barricading himself in his dorm...
The fact is students don't trust the student services. They'll sooner call you mentally stressed and cart you off for "rest" rather then actually help you.
1)NYU just announced major endowment losses of $500,000,000 and might call for staff layoffs on top of the salary freezes that it's already imposed so hiring someone on some 24hr suicide watch ain't happening.
2)What Julianna said. It doesn't matter the method he's going to kill himself. No amount of floor changing would prevent him from killing himself.
@girlnextdoor I'm sorry you had to experience that. I just wanted to let you know that a counseling service is currently available in the conference room near the reference desk on the ground floor.
"John Beckman has sent us the following statement (which is continued after the jump)."
What an appropriate segue
ya that was ice cold jen
Ever see the movie "The Bridge," a documentary about people who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge? Really awesome if you get the chance. Bobst is the Golden Gate of the Village.
I thought our Golden Gate was the Bklyn Bridge. I would classify that movie as a snuff film in every respect.
anyway they get the only chick-fil-a and are still depressed?
I nearly spat out my cookie laughing when "Max Meyers" took offense with the first photo of a guy on his stomach lying on a couch while they were conducting the tour.
Campus tragedies of any kind can evoke strong emotions. Discussing these thoughts with friends and family can be helpful. The key is not to be alone with troubling thoughts or emotions. If any NYU student wants to talk to a counselor, the NYU Wellness Exchange is available 24/7 at 212-443-9999. We are ready to help NYU students in any way we can.
To those of you who say "people want to kill themselves they will find a way", I say "if you want to save them you can find a way too". Accepting suicide as an event and coming up with statistics for it- scientifically is ok as one measure to quantify it- is not acceptable in a humane society. To the Counselor who wrote a comment here : First and foremost thank you for reaching out.I understand that NYU has mental health services, but the problem is that people who want to commit suicide don't seek help. There should be some measures in place to evaluate and to reach out to those who are so helpless that can't even ask for help. That is why I suggested that the mental health offices and professiosnals be accessible in more accessible locations near where the student are most of the time. If you have statistics that most of your suicides happen in the library, would not you say there is a pattern there???? So, go where the helpless seems to run out of options and be there instead of sitting in the office waiting for a S.O.S phone call that almost never comes. I am saying all this in all due respect, sincerity and love for NYU community.
About one percent of the population gets severely mentally ill in their late teens and early 20's. NYU does provide mental health services.
Seeking such help is seen as a sign of weakness, particularly by men. Some men choose to commit suicide rather than to admit they are depressed. Of course, that's crazy.
Money issues are very rarely the cause of suicide at high powered schools like NYU. Many come from money or are likely to be making much money. Those without much money still have very high status in their home town or at their old high school for the achievements of their youth. Decline in status, not little money, could provoke some men to commit suicide.
Nearly all the students at high powered, high status schools, both men and women, if severely disturbed at graduation, would still do well enough on civil service exams to obtain and maintain clerical jobs that would provide enough income to be gainfully employed and self-supporting, though not to become a world-famous CEO. Working as a postal clerk or letter carrier may not have anywhere near as much status as that achieved by one's classmates, but such a person can still go much further in the living world than a corpse.
To those of you who say "people want to kill themselves they will find a way", I say "if you want to save them you can find a way too". Accepting suicide as an event and coming up with statistics for it- scientifically is ok as one measure to quantify it- is not acceptable in a humane society. To the Counselor who wrote a comment here : First and foremost thank you for reaching out.I understand that NYU has mental health services, but the problem is that people who want to commit suicide don't seek help. There should be some measures in place to evaluate and to reach out to those who are so helpless that can't even ask for help. That is why I suggested that the mental health offices and professiosnals be accessible in more accessible locations near where the student are most of the time. If you have statistics that most of your suicides happen in the library, would not you say there is a pattern there???? So, go where the helpless seems to run out of options and be there instead of sitting in the office waiting for a S.O.S phone call that almost never comes. I am saying all this in all due respect, sincerity and love for NYU community.
Jumping is the only option these days with the economy so bad. If you don't get the A's in schools, it pays to jump. Why? Because you will be bagging groceries for the rest of your life and living on the street.
Its a competitive market right now. Only the strongest survive. The weak become pawns of the few. Play chess and you will understand.
It depends what is your definition of strong??? I know about the survival of the fittest etc.. but I want you to also know that there is abundance of goodness, kindness, and non-judgement around. Not everybody values competitiveness, you can go where there is less competitiveness and more humanity. It does exist. You have no idea how much I believe in this. And if you are writing this in despair I hope that you reach out to someone caring and kind near where you are.
I think you fail to realize how society operates as a whole.
Those who did not score well on the SAT's were among those who died in the last war we had as government recruiters consistently called them time and time again. By not getting into good schools or by scoring low academically in a good school like NYU, you are opening yourself up to perpetual failure. I say this in all honesty. I have seen plenty of suicides and murders myself and I know how they work and why they happen in various levels of academia.
Even those top schools at top institutions, have wound up amongst those who died because they believe so strongly in their work when other competing forces get involved.
Life is a game of chess. Get caught in it, and others wind up controlling your moves. You can't get to a certain position because of a bad grade. Others wind up moving up the ladder while you are about to lose the game. When you know failure is the ultimate outcome, why continue to play? It is over.
Failure is never the ultimate outcome. None of us know that for sure.
Success can have many forms.
I understand and agree with what you are saying. Human race has been losing its humane side and has been becoming more and more materialistic. But I am asking you: don't we have the power to choose our games? Or the power to invent a new game? Can't we say: I don't play the game of life according to the wrong standards? There is still a lot of us humans left who live by the rules of compassion, and non judgment. Look for those good people, you will find them, you will have a more fulfilling life that those who compete to death for status, and materialistic objects. I am saying that you have a life, and you have choices (you do). Before you give up, can you look for some goodness?
That might be the most intelligent comment I've ever read on gothamist. Apply it to most any situation and it works.
Ferget it. I responded to another posting and wound up getting a call on my cellphone.
ok, I will write no more. Only I am thinking maybe the phone call had to do something with the goodness that I was referring to??? Maybe?
The library is a horrid ugly building not conducive to
rest or study.
When it was being built the union pro USA construction
workers threw bricks from the roof at "Hippie protestors"
against the Viet-Nam war.
So blood there was spilt even before Bobst Libray was opened.
History has a short life.
what made him do this?
we just hope nothing like this would happen again