On Tuesday, April 12, at around 1:30 p.m., Rubin Hall’s leadership team sent an email to residents addressing a trespasser who had entered the residence hall on multiple occasions within the last week.

WSN previously reported that the unidentified male entered Rubin Hall, an NYU dormitory at 35 Fifth Ave., at least three times. He stayed overnight twice between Wednesday, April 6, and Sunday, April 10, according to several students. The man, who claimed to be a graduate student, approached residents and followed several female students as they exited the residence hall.

​​[Read more: Unidentified man spotted wandering around Rubin Hall] 

In the email to Rubin Hall residents, staff said Campus Safety officers will be more present in the residence’s common areas at peak hours and will start asking residents for identification. Residents were also instructed to visit Rubin Hall’s resource center if they do not have a building sticker on their NYU ID, a requirement for students living in university housing.

“I think the email should’ve included more information about the intruder’s identity,” said a resident who asked to remain anonymous due to safety concerns. “A picture would’ve been very helpful.”

[Watch: Student confronts Rubin intruder]

Another anonymous resident agreed that the building’s leadership did not adequately address their safety concerns. 

“There wasn’t a picture of him, so nobody knows what he looks like,” the student said. “How can it be prevented if all of the residents or students in general don’t have the details of the situation?”

Students describe their encounters with the intruder

On Wednesday, April 6, at around 11:30 pm, three female residents of Rubin were watching television in a Rubin Hall lounge. The intruder approached the group and sat in the chair next to them. He asked them questions as they attempted to watch the show. 

“He asked us, ‘What year are you guys?’ because we were like, ‘Hold on, this is a freshman lounge,’” one of the residents said. “We said, ‘Oh, we’re freshmen.’ He laughed and said, ‘I’m five years older than you guys.’ That’s when we got uncomfortable, because we were like, if you’re five years older than us, then you’re not supposed to be here.” 

Around 45 minutes later, the students went downstairs to report the incident. They said they saw the man watching them as they left and when they returned.

“We could feel he was staring at us, trying to kind of model whatever we were doing,” another one of the residents said. “So we took the elevator up to the third floor and came back to the fourth floor so he could see that we were going down to security.”

When they arrived, a Campus Safety officer showed the students a picture of the intruder and asked if it was the same man they had seen. The officer told the student that the intruder was sitting in the blind spot of the camera. One of the students said that she felt that her concerns were not properly addressed in the conversation with the officer.

“The person seemed to understand what we’re saying,” the student said. “But it didn’t feel like it was taken as seriously as it should have been in the moment.”

The student said the intruder was later questioned by the Campus Safety officer and escorted out of the building. She said the officer asked the man if he was an NYU student and he revealed that he did not have an NYU ID.

In the fall 2021 semester, a non-NYU affiliated person entered a student’s room in Lafayette Hall on Nov. 3. They refused to leave, entered residents’ rooms and made sexual comments. Security did not arrive for over an hour after the students involved reported the incident to residence hall authorities.

Contact Lauren Ashe at [email protected].