An New York University student leaped to his death Tuesday from the 10th floor of the main library, police said.
Andrew Williamson-Noble, 20, of Irvington, N.Y., used an NYU-issued card to swipe himself into the Bobst Library, where he committed suicide around 4:30 a.m., sources said.
Witnesses reported hearing a "loud thud" when the junior's body hit the marble floor in the atrium of the library.
"There was no blood," said a 19-year-old student named Tyler, who was studying in the building's basement at the time.
The Greenwich Village-based university, which has endured a rash of suicides in recent years, installed six-foot plexiglass walls on the floors facing the atrium in 2003 after two other students killed themselves.
"It's not an easy thing to do," said sophomore Irvin Camarillo, 19. "You'd have to be tall to flop over it, unless you had a chair or something."
Many students said they recently had midterms and they're still feeling very stressed out.
"I think it's that some people just have a lot of troubling adjusting to school," said freshman Lindsey Wu, 19. "And right now is just after midterms."
NYU president John Sexton confirmed the suicide in an e-mail sent to students around lunch time.
"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," he wrote.
Sexton also urged students who might be struggling to cope with the tragedy to visit the counselors at NYU's Wellness Center.
"It's a terrible, terrible tragedy," added Anthony Jiga, NYU's vice president for budget and planning.
NYU is a highly-competitive school full of driven students and that has sometimes led to tragedy.
Two years ago, the school began posting security guards on the rooftops and restricting balcony access in two high-rise dorms to deter suicidal students. There have been at least half-dozen suicides at NYU since 2003.
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