A 17-year-old boy is dead after plunging from an unsecured stairwell in the abandoned Plaza Tower in downtown New Orleans, where police say a group of teenagers had slipped into the abandoned high-rise shortly before midnight Friday, Aug. 14, for a nighttime adventure that turned fatal.
New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said the teens broke into the vacant skyscraper for what she called "a little urban exploring" that ended in tragedy. The exact number of teens involved has not been determined, and the identity of the boy who died was not immediately disclosed.
Kirkpatrick said some of the teenagers had been consuming alcohol, and all were minors. A 911 call came in Saturday at 12:04 a.m. seeking medical help inside the fenced-off building. Paramedics responding to the scene discovered one teenager had died in the fall, while a second required hospital treatment for severe cuts to the arm and wrist.
A Climb Into a Crumbling Tower
The teens had made their way to what Kirkpatrick described as “a higher floor” in the 45-story structure, climbing an internal stairway that has lost its protective railings. She said determining the precise floor where the fatal fall occurred would come later.
The 58-year-old tower was abandoned in 2002 after severe contamination by toxic black mold and asbestos left it uninhabitable. Since Hurricane Katrina, the structure has slid into deeper disrepair, and its top is still wrapped in netting to keep pieces from falling to the sidewalk below.
Kirkpatrick stressed that the property is not owned by the city. "This is a private property,” she said, calling it an intrusion into a fenced area and noting trespassing charges might apply.
“Every single one of those kids is traumatized right now,” Kirkpatrick added.
Officials Call It a Tragedy
Michael Harrison, a former NOPD chief who now serves as New Orleans’ deputy mayor for public safety, called the death a “truly tragic incident.” He was blunt about who belongs inside the building: no one, whether adult or child, should be entering it.
Harrison placed the burden of keeping the site sealed squarely on the property’s owners, saying it is their responsibility to make sure the abandoned building is secure. He described the tower as very unsafe, a reality he said had been made painfully clear overnight.
Kirkpatrick said her information indicated the property owners employ security personnel on site, though she couldn’t verify if guards were there when the teens entered. Asked whether the owners might face criminal charges, she left the door open, saying it was possible but that authorities would examine that later.
A Property in Limbo
The Plaza Tower has been caught in a long stretch of uncertainty. In July 2025, Lincoln Area Properties entered into an agreement to acquire the structure from Joe Jaeger’s estate. The buyer has laid out a plan to convert the tower into an apartment building for senior housing, but it has not yet closed financing on the deal.
For now, the high-rise remains fenced off and vacant, a familiar silhouette on the downtown skyline that has drawn the curious despite the hazards inside. The lack of railings on the interior staircase, the toxic contamination that emptied the building more than two decades ago, and the ongoing risk of falling debris all underscore why officials have urged the public to stay out.
This is not the first death connected to the tower. A man died after falling from an unknown floor of the building in 2023.
As of the latest statements from police, the investigation was still in its early stages, with questions about possible trespassing charges, the presence of security, and the potential liability of the building’s owners all left for another day. What was clear, officials said, was the human cost: a teenager dead, another injured, and a group of young people carrying the weight of what happened in the middle of the night inside a building no one was supposed to enter.