The Downtown News reports on a grim trend in the neighborhood: There have been six people who've attempted suicide by jumping off roofs in 2009, a number the LAPD says is unusual given that there are usually about four total suicides in downtown each year. Of the six, five have died. One person jumped from interior atrium at the Central Library and survived, while the rest jumped from the following buildings: Promenade Towers, Hayward Hotel, SB Lofts, the Grand Central Market parking structure, and the Cathay Manor Apartments. And of course, there was last week's talk-down of a man off the 110 overpass in downtown. Downtown jumpers and media coverage of them is nothing new, as evidenced by Blogdowntown's rehashing of a Los Angeles Times story that ran in 1959 about a would-be jumper who backed off the parapet of the Broadway Arcade, likely disappointing the crowd, who'd been shouting "Jump!" And reader Vokoban left the following comment on Curbed-- "I suspect the troubles with [The Brockman] have to do with the ghost of Dr. Church"--and pointed out this Times article, dated Sept. 3, 1919: "After a desperate struggle with his private nurse in the offices of Dr. C.R.K Swetnam on the tenth floor of the Brockman Building, Seventh street and Grand avenue, and after a dramatic battle on a window sill 100 feet above the street and in plain view of a horrified crowd, Dr. B.F. Church, 55 years of age, leaped from the window late yesterday afternoon and was dashed to death on the sidewalk in Seventh street." 1939 LA Times story about jumper from the Pacific Mutual Building
· Six Attempted Suicides, No Easy Answers [Downtown News]
· Fifty Years Ago Today: Arcade Building Jumper Disappoints Downtowners by Turning Back[Blogdowntown]
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