A 20-year-old college student from NJ was found dead on a roof of the Four Seasons Hotel last night. It's believed that Connor Cummings, 20, and a friend were scaling the midtown Manhattan hotel's facade to take a photograph when Cummings slipped and fell.
Police say that they responded to the hotel, located at 57 East 57th Street, at 11:15 p.m. A spokesman says that Cummings, who was pronounced dead at the scene, was found on a sub-roof (the Four Season has setbacks for different floors).
The Daily News reports, "As [Cummings and his friend] climbed in the pouring rain, one of the pair either jumped or fell, plunging nine stories until he landed on one of the lower rooftops of the luxury hotel."
The pair had used the scaffolding outside the hotel to climb up. According to the Post, Cummings was "attempt[ing] to take a 'panoramic' photograph."
Cummings, who lived in Rockaway, NJ, graduated from Morris Knoll High School last year and was a student at University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His family told WABC 7 that he was a photography buff.
His aunt told the news station, "We're trying to get answers. They say that he went up the elevator, and then went up a stairway, and then went out on a balcony, but the cops aren't saying exactly what happened. And, I know the medical examiner was up there. I mean, he's a young kid, he's a good kid, they weren't drinking or anything, they were taking a picture."
