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It was the kind of temperate summer night that draws apartment-dwellers outside to sidewalk restaurants or rooftop bars or balconies high above the street.
That is where Jennifer Rosoff was shortly before 1 a.m. Thursday, retiring to her 17th-floor balcony in Midtown with a man she had just met for a first date. As they talked, she casually hoisted herself atop the wide metal railing, cigarette in hand.
The conversation shifted. Perhaps she should be more careful, he suggested. It is not a problem, she assured him. She had done this many times before.
Then Rosoff was gone.
She fell 140 feet to the construction scaffolding at the base of the building, at 400 E. 57th St., and died from the impact. The police said there was no appearance of foul play; the railing, bent down hard at the corner, was still evident Thursday, providing a fearful sight for passersby.
The death of Rosoff, 35, whom a friend described as “an A-player” in the competitive world of media advertising sales, immediately rippled across cellphones and inboxes of distraught friends and colleagues.
It also brought forth the perilous possibilities and primal fears embedded in New York. The jut of an apartment balcony hanging over cavernous streets. The rush of traffic. The oncoming subway train.
“To be in a densely crowded, fast-paced vertical city is to experience all kinds of vulnerabilities,” said Eric Klinenberg, a professor of sociology at New York University whose areas of interest include urban studies and risk. “We inure ourselves against almost all of them because we do it so often. People sit on ledges all the time and nothing happens to them, tiptoe across the yellow line at the subway stop without consequences and jaywalk without being hit by a bus.”
The Department of Buildings immediately issued an order barring all other residents of the building from going onto their balconies, which the department characterized as “imminently perilous to life.” A department spokeswoman said inspectors were still investigating the reason for the collapse.
“Right now, detectives believe that she was sitting on a defective balcony railing, causing her to fall to her death,” Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the Police Department, said.
The 20-story rental apartment building was bought recently by Stonehenge, a company that owns and manages properties around Manhattan. Stonehenge is doing extensive renovations, primarily on the inside of the building, the Department of Buildings said.
After a deadly fall from a Midtown balcony in 2010, the Buildings Department began an extensive round of safety reviews and found that hundreds of building owners had failed to file required inspection reports on their balconies. Residents of more than a dozen buildings were then ordered to stop using their balconies because of safety concerns.
That round of intensive scrutiny by the department followed the death of Connor Donohue, 24, who fell from a 24th-floor balcony in March 2010. The department found in that case that the company that managed the building had not filed a proper inspection report in 10 years.
The department said an inspection report had been filed for Rosoff’s building in February, several months late; the company incurred a $250 penalty. A Stonehenge representative declined to comment Thursday.
That is where Jennifer Rosoff was shortly before 1 a.m. Thursday, retiring to her 17th-floor balcony in Midtown with a man she had just met for a first date. As they talked, she casually hoisted herself atop the wide metal railing, cigarette in hand.
The conversation shifted. Perhaps she should be more careful, he suggested. It is not a problem, she assured him. She had done this many times before.
Then Rosoff was gone.
She fell 140 feet to the construction scaffolding at the base of the building, at 400 E. 57th St., and died from the impact. The police said there was no appearance of foul play; the railing, bent down hard at the corner, was still evident Thursday, providing a fearful sight for passersby.
The death of Rosoff, 35, whom a friend described as “an A-player” in the competitive world of media advertising sales, immediately rippled across cellphones and inboxes of distraught friends and colleagues.
It also brought forth the perilous possibilities and primal fears embedded in New York. The jut of an apartment balcony hanging over cavernous streets. The rush of traffic. The oncoming subway train.
“To be in a densely crowded, fast-paced vertical city is to experience all kinds of vulnerabilities,” said Eric Klinenberg, a professor of sociology at New York University whose areas of interest include urban studies and risk. “We inure ourselves against almost all of them because we do it so often. People sit on ledges all the time and nothing happens to them, tiptoe across the yellow line at the subway stop without consequences and jaywalk without being hit by a bus.”
The Department of Buildings immediately issued an order barring all other residents of the building from going onto their balconies, which the department characterized as “imminently perilous to life.” A department spokeswoman said inspectors were still investigating the reason for the collapse.
“Right now, detectives believe that she was sitting on a defective balcony railing, causing her to fall to her death,” Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the Police Department, said.
The 20-story rental apartment building was bought recently by Stonehenge, a company that owns and manages properties around Manhattan. Stonehenge is doing extensive renovations, primarily on the inside of the building, the Department of Buildings said.
After a deadly fall from a Midtown balcony in 2010, the Buildings Department began an extensive round of safety reviews and found that hundreds of building owners had failed to file required inspection reports on their balconies. Residents of more than a dozen buildings were then ordered to stop using their balconies because of safety concerns.
That round of intensive scrutiny by the department followed the death of Connor Donohue, 24, who fell from a 24th-floor balcony in March 2010. The department found in that case that the company that managed the building had not filed a proper inspection report in 10 years.
The department said an inspection report had been filed for Rosoff’s building in February, several months late; the company incurred a $250 penalty. A Stonehenge representative declined to comment Thursday.
no..really.. I'm good way over here by the stairs
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