A beloved real estate broker is believed to have jumped to his death from a tony Upper East Side building Tuesday morning, authorities said.
The super of the four-story building on East 67th Street identified the man as 56-year-old resident and Douglas Elliman broker Thomas “Tom” Cooper.
Cooper, who left a suicide note, is thought to have leaped from the top floor of 18 E. 67th St., just steps from the coveted high-end shopping stretch of Madison Avenue, and was found on the sidewalk around 7:19 a.m., police said.
EMS workers brought him to Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
“He was a nice guy. I am so sad, very sad … He always talks to me,” said super Renato Cera, who was at the building earlier Tuesday and returned when his manager called to report the apparent suicide.
The victim lived alone, and did not have family who came to visit, Cera told The Post.
“He [was] always alone,” said Cera, noting the last time he saw Cooper was about two weeks ago.
“He looked happy. He told me, ‘You are always on time’ … I said, ‘You know, I have to fix the garbage,’” he said of their last interaction.
Cooper had surgery “in the stomach” over the summer, Cera said, though he could not confirm exactly what kind of operation it was.
The super said Cooper had lived at the building at least since Cera started working there more than a year ago.
Cooper’s last post on Instagram was a smiling photo next to an elaborate Christmas tree.
“The gorgeous lobby of The Police Building @ 240 Centre St!” the broker wrote.
Bill Hogan, property manager of the building, described Cooper as an “excellent” tenant.
“He was one of my favorite tenants….. very nice person,” Hogan told The Post.
“It’s a shame. It’s just sad about what happened around the holidays,” he added.
Vincent Scaldaferri, the site supervisor at the building next door, said he witnessed the tragic fall, but at first thought he was seeing “a sack of laundry.”
“I saw it when it hit the ground. It was kind of like he landed on his shoulder side, and then he fell over on his back and he went into convulsion immediately,” the shaken witness said.
“He wasn’t talking at all, bleeding from the head. His [left] leg was broken. The middle section of his body looked like it was just a bag of bones,” he said.
“I think he hit his head when he hit the ground. It happened so quickly. It was such a flash. If I close my eyes, I can see him falling right now.”
Scaldaferri said the man had on glasses, a gray beard and was wearing shorts, a white T-shirt and no socks or shoes.
“I called [911] within 30 seconds of him hitting the ground,” he said.
“Within 20 minutes he was off in the ambulance. He was still in convulsion. He was bleeding from the top of his head,” he recalled of the troubling scene.
“I froze in my car. Then I grabbed my phone. I started … ’What does he do that for?’ I was yelling at him, ‘Why did you do that for?’ and I started dialing 911,” he recalled.
Scaldaferri said he was badly shaken by what he witnessed, and was going home instead of reporting for work as planned.
“It’s been terrible … terrible to see someone falling and taking a life like that. It couldn’t have been that bad. I can’t imagine anything that bad. Life is so precious,” he said.
“A neighbor came out and said he just spent Christmas Eve with him and he had said that it was the best Christmas Eve he had ever had. Things must’ve been bad. I mean 57 years old and it’s the [best] Christmas you had.”
Another nearby worker was shocked to hear that the man jumped — and later died.
“Oh my God! I thought it was nothing because I didn’t see anybody,” he told The Post.
“My co-worker came and said, ‘What happened over there, the top window is broken?’ But we didn’t know anything,” he said.
The East 67th Street address was built in 1905 and has eight units — including a three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment that rented for $9,000 per month last year, according to StreetEasy.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.