What could have plagued them? What could have been so pressing to a 21 year old?
I have been to several campuses… when I was looking for schools myself, when I was attending College & then again in looking for schools for the kids. And of course I grew up in New Haven where the Yale Campus was in my “back yard”.
I loved Yale’s Gothic Buildings… its detailed architecture… a stately Payne-Whitney Gymnasium, Woolsey Hall for concerts & lectures and a magnificent Library… the main Library, not Beinecke Rare Book (too modern for my taste).
And I suppose I am drawn to Libraries on College Campuses… I mean that’s what it’s supposed to be about isn’t it? Yes, the campus is wonderful… show me the Library.
My Brother-in-Law Will and I went to Union together… but both he and his wife Wilma got their Masters and PhD’s from Cornell. Beautiful Campus that… tremendous Library, too. But the feature that is mostly identified with Cornell is the massive gorges that slice through the Campus… narrow apertures that open to rocky and treacherous defiles. Troubled students have been known to jump from the edge to their deaths in the jagged rocks far below. This was referred to as “gorging out”. A grim sport that you don’t want to letter in. Folks say that Ithaca can be a depressing place during the winter months.
New York City is never depressing. And Zack simply adored NYU. Campus? No… nothing much really. Washington Square in the Village has its charm… but any citizen can enjoy its charm… it’s not distinct to NYU… but what is definitely NYU is a tall concrete & brick edifice that rises from the South East corner of the Square…it is the Bobst Library… and by all accounts it is the most impressive College Library that I have seen.
It is a 12 story building that is built around an atrium… the stacks and rooms surround the atrium. The ground floor of the Library has a marvelous marble floor in a fascinating geometric pattern… from above the pattern creates an incredible optical illusion… from the 12th floor it looks like huge sharply cut slabs emerging from the ground. If you fear heights it can be scary stuff looking down from the 12th floor… Ellen was terrified and couldn’t be pried from the inner wall of the gallery.
What were those two students thinking (some 6 months apart, the most recent this past week) when they leapt to their deaths?
Oh the pain they must have endured to have come to such a decision.