Police say 15-year-old Imogen Roche was attending a party inside an apartment building on Reade Street in Tribeca.
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It appears she left her cell phone in a room that was locked just before 11 p.m.
Authorities say Imogen went onto the fire escape, attempting to reenter the apartment by going in another window, when she lost her balance and fell.
It happened on the top floor of the five-story building near the corner of West Broadway.
She fell to the sidewalk below.
She was rushed to Bellevue Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
"I can't believe this happened," her friend Victoria wrote on Instagram. "No words can begin to describe how much you meant to me and impacted my life. We have been through everything together, and I have never met someone who genuinely gets me more than you. I will love you FOREVER. I just wish I could see you one more time. I have always cared about you so much more than you know, you are in a better place now."
The teen had been part of a popular film program at the Manhattan Youth Organization, which provides after school activities. Her father, Theseus Roche, is a director at Manhattan Youth and an award-winning film maker himself.
"This is literally heartbreaking," longtime neighbor Vicki Winters said. "She was adorable. He's an amazing father. He was a single parent."
Winters said Imogen was following her father's footsteps, an aspiring actress, film maker and dancer.
"Unique," she said. "Definitely unique."
Police say they are investigating the circumstances around the teen's death and talking to apartment owner, the mother of Imogen's friend, trying to better piece together the final hours before the bright young talent fell to her death.
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