Suicide Epidemic Tied to Steve Carrell

There seems to be a jumping epidemic in the city. Just days after that NYU student fell to his presumably self-willed death at the ill-starred Bobst Library, a newlywed has gone out the window of the Avenue Plaza Hotel in Borough Park. 24-year-old Mordechai (Motty) Borger fell seven stories and later died at the hospital. His engagement to Mali Gutman had been celebrated in July ("You guys make a perfect couple!") and they were married in Williamsburg Tuesday; his bride was asleep in the hotel room when he descended from its balcony at 6:45 a.m. yesterday. The couple seemed very happy; police describe Berger as "disturbed," though that may have been a retrospective judgement...

Yesterday afternoon a woman threatened to leap from the 26th floor of an East 85th St. apartment. After 90 minutes police got her to come back from the window, and took her to the hospital for observation.

No explanation there, either, though they may have seen this week's episode of The Office, in which Steve Carrell made a gag out of pretending to hang himself ("Kids, just remember, suicide is not the answer"), and of which the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention has complained. "We're not trying to be censors or fall into the trap of wanting everything to be PC," says an AFSP spokesman. Noted!