DOWNTOWN — A man who fell to his death Monday from the roof at the LondonHouse luxury hotel on Wacker Drive was taking photos without permission, according to a report.
The man was identified as Eric Paul Janssen, of Memphis, Tennessee, by the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office. He was pronounced dead at 3:48 p.m.
The man had been trespassing at the hotel at 85 E. Wacker Drive to take photos on a ledge when he fell to a sixth-floor roof behind the hotel and died, according to CBS2.
Janssen's Instagram shows he took photos of city buildings and abandoned spaces.
The death appeared to be accidental, said Officer Thomas Sweeney, a Chicago Police Department spokesman.
The man was not a hotel employee.
“Officials at the hotel are working with the Chicago Police Department and other first responders regarding the death of a man who apparently fell from a 20th-floor parapet wall to a sixth-floor rooftop earlier this afternoon," George Jordan, senior vice president of operations for Oxford Hotels & Resorts, which manages the LondonHouse, said. "We offer our condolences."
A parapet is a narrow wall that outlines the rooftop of a building.
Parts of Wacker Drive were closed near the hotel after the fall.
The LondonHouse opened a new, multitiered rooftop bar in 2016, creating a unique spot atop one of Chicago's distinctive buildings to have a drink and hang out amid Chicago's skyscrapers. It's become a popular spot for photographers.
In 2014, just a few blocks away, a man trying to take photos atop the Intercontinental Hotel's massive stone chimney fell to his death.
