Tragic death at Riverdale high-rise

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A longtime Riverdale resident died in an apparent suicide, jumping out of his 17-story high-rise apartment building on Jan. 16, according to police.

Ralph Mayer, 80, was a retired electrical engineer who narrowly escaped the Holocaust before emigrating to the U.S.

He was found dead several feet outside the entrance to the Edmond Lee building at 3135 Johnson Ave. when police arrived around 12:30 p.m.

Neighbors and family members remembered Mr. Mayer as a kind man who mostly kept to himself during decades of living at the building.

They reacted with shock to the apparent suicide. None could remember a similar incident during their time at the Edmond Lee.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think someone would jump off the roof,” said resident Frank Felderbaum, who happened on the scene after authorities arrived.

By Sunday afternoon, a post in the building’s lobby held a letter by one of Mr. Mayer’s grandchildren that lovingly described the man.

“My grandfather was smart. He had a good sense of humor. I was lucky to know him,” Tamar Mayer-De Angeliss, 14, wrote on lined notebook paper.

“I know that he was always there for me even when I didn’t really know it,” the note concluded. “I know that he loved me and my parents. I’m truly going to miss him.”

According to Mr. Mayer’s son-in-law Ray De Angeliss, Mr. Mayer was a brilliant electrical engineer who spent his career working in city hospitals and writing publications after graduating from MIT.

“He was probably one of the best men I’ve ever known and he was the best kind of good man. He was quiet about it and could care less if anybody knew or was grateful,” Mr. De Angeliss said in a phone interview. “He did things the right way simply because he believed in good to others as a way of life.”

“If you read his work, you could see this astonishing mind at work, and yet he was not a braggart of a show-off,” he added.

Holocaust survivor

Mr. De Angeliss said Mr. Mayer and his family fled their home in Bratislava, in modern-day Slovakia, “one hour before the Gestapo” came to take them.

Ralph Mayer, Ray De Angeliss, Edmond Lee, Oliver Koppell, Shant Shahrigian
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