Rescuers were called to 70 Morningside Drive in Morningside Heights around 8 a.m.
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Hours before, the man ran into Zane Bhansall, barging into his suite.
"He wasn't threatening, but he was definitely belligerent, and he was just standing up there being like 'I can't believe you guys made me sing,' and we had no idea what he was talking about," Bhansall said.
Bhansall had never seen the man before. Stuffing Oreos in his mouth, Bhansall said the man reached for the wine next. Eventually Bhansall ran to get help.
"We did ask him to leave, and he wouldn't - we finally got him to leave when my friend told him his jacket was outside," he said.
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Fast forward to Saturday morning, when Bhansall heard about what happened inside the shaft. The student somehow found his way to the roof, opened the vent, and fell from the 23rd floor all the way to the 16th floor. He was stuck for eight hours.
"Hearing what he went through, that's like torture, being stuck in an air shaft for eight hours is not something I wish upon anyone, and I feel awful for him," said Bhansall.
The man was freed around 9 a.m. and taken to St. Luke's Hospital with serious, but non-life threatening, injuries.His name has not yet been released.