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Body on Canal St. Tracks Identified as 22-Year-Old Park Slope Actress

By DNAinfo Staff | April 8, 2013 6:18pm | Updated on April 9, 2013 7:26pm

TRIBECA — Police believe a woman found dead on the tracks at the Canal Street 1 train station over the weekend was a 22-year-old Park Slope actress who fell to her death.

Emily Singleton, of Berkeley Place in Brooklyn, did not appear to have been struck by a train and likely died from falling into the tracks given the type of head injuries she sustained, sources said.

Outside Midtown East's Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, where Singleton had studied acting, a handful of students and teachers tried to console each other through tears Tuesday morning.

"We were all very sad to hear the news," said Pamela Moller Kareman, a director for the school. "She was beautiful in every way that a woman can be beautiful. She was a great talent, very loved and had a sparkling energetic personality.

"She was a remarkably sweet, talented, lovely young girl. She was a remarkable, remarkable young woman," Kareman added before excusing herself to return inside, too distraught to speak.

Singleton had first attended a summer program there in 2009 and enrolled full-time last May after graduating from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, Moller Kareman said.

She distinguished herself as an adept performer at Bucknell, where she acted in Jean Paul Sartre's "No Exit" and her school's a capella group Two Past Midnight singing solos in Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'" and Beyonce's "If I Were A Boy."

Officials found Singleton, who was wearing leather pants and high heels, on the station’s trackbed at Canal and Varick streets at 1:15 p.m. Sunday.

Sources said she was seen at McKenna’s Pub on West 14th Street and left the bar a little before 1:24 a.m. with a few other young women.

A good Samaritan encountered her on the 2 train sometime later and said she seemed disoriented, sources added. The good Samaritan tried to get to get her off the train to get help. Singleton allegedly rebuked the woman's offer, though, and got back on a train after getting off briefly, sources said.

Police found Singleton on the subway bed at the Canal Street station with only a MetroCard and pack of cigarettes.

The owner of McKenna's Pub, Brian McKenna, said he reviewed surveillance tape of Singleton leaving the bar and said she appeared to be walking normally when she left.

“She looked sober," said McKenna. “She looked okay.”

Singleton's Park Slope neighbors said Monday that they were shocked by her death.

"Oh, that's so terrible," said Barbara Abramson, who lives in the same Berkeley Place building as Singleton. "That's so horrible."

Abramson said she had just spoken to Singleton on Saturday, briefly discussing internet access in the building.

Singleton's death came just two days after John Williams, 58, of Washington Heights, was struck and killed by a southbound D train at 72nd Street and Central Park West.

With reporting by Alan Neuhauser.