[Editors Note: This is one of the Village Voice’s top 10 most-read longform stories of 2015. Don’t forget to check out the rest of 2015’s popular posts.]
New Yorkers aren’t any more morbid than people in any other city, but perhaps because of this town’s sheer population density and history, it’s impossible to avoid stepping on the exact spot where somebody drew his or her last breath. (Maybe somebody even died in your apartment — maybe even in the room where you sleep each night.) And the recent case of a Wisconsin transplant who died after falling from a fire escape reminds us of another danger inherent to living in the city. Illustrated here are twenty situations many New Yorkers encounter regularly, even daily, that could be fatal. — Nick Lucchesi
Illustrations by Danny Hellman.