While the number of suicides in New York City differs from other parts of the country, the methods of suicides in the city also differ.

Think jumping in front of subway trains is the most common method? In fact, less than 4.0 percent of New York City suicides in 1998 occurred by jumping in front of moving objects. The prevalent method is hanging, which makes up 31.3 percent. Jumping from high places resulted in 22.7 percent of city suicide deaths, and firearms caused 21.0 percent. This is far different from national averages, where guns account for over 80 percent of suicide deaths.

One reason for the discrepancy might be New Yorkers unique circumstances in the city. A 1992 study published in the Archive of General Psychiatry examined the relative risk of different suicide methods with New York City residents’ access to those methods, examining city suicides from 1984 to 1987. The study found a strong correlation between the particular characteristics of each borough and the suicides that take place there.

In Staten Island and Queens, for example, the suicide ratio for people asphyxiating themselves with car exhaust is more than twice the city average. But in these boroughs, over half of families live in one-or two-family homes, meaning they have garages. Manhattan, with less than one percent living in one-or two-family houses, there were no reports of carbon-monoxide suicides. The Bronx and Brooklyn, where 30 percent and 15 percent respectively, were determined to have private garages, the figures were less than a fifth of those recorded for Staten Island and Queens.

hen it comes to jumping from buildings, it is far more likely for a person to use this method in Manhattan than the other boroughs. The researchers determined that over half of Manhattanites live above the sixth floor, while the figures for the rest of the city were below 28 percent. Indeed, the number of jumping suicides in Manhattan was three times the city average and more than twice the Bronx, which recorded the next highest number.

"Jumping from a tall building is a pretty common form of suicide in Manhattan," says Dr. Mann. "That’s certainly very, very different from the rest of the countries and different from all the other boroughs."

New Yorkers living in Manhattan were also more likely to commit suicide by overdose of prescription drugs, recording a rate more than twice the city average. Although the study could not assess the amount number of Manhattan residents with access to lethal amounts of prescription drugs, it did point out that Manhattan had from three to four times the number of physicians per capita of the other boroughs.

The media and entertainment industries certainly haven’t helped. Jumping off the Empire State Building is practically a cliché, even though no more than 15 suicides were ever reported in real life.

"We really have to avoid glamorizing suicide because suicide is a tragedy," says Dr. Mann. "It’s something we have to avoid at any cost."