The body of one of the city’s best-known transsexual escorts was found early yesterday on the pavement outside her 30-story luxury apartment building in Chelsea.

Susan Shah, 35, a native of Mexico who was known in transgender circles as “Princess,” fell from her apartment on the 20th floor of 77 W. 24th St. in an apparent suicide, her friends and the police said. Shah had been battling the HIV/AIDS virus and had recently received a dire prognosis on her medical condition from a physician. “They told her that her T-cells were so low it was a wonder she was even walking,” said John Tennler, a photographer who captured nude and sexually suggestive poses of Shah that were posted on her many Web sites.

“It was just too much,” Mr. Tennler said. “She didn’t want to become the ugly and sickly part of it. She didn’t want to go out from AIDS. She wanted to be remembered as herself.”

In the country’s transgender community, Mr. Tennler said, Shah was “a top star, very famous,” who “wanted to show all the girls that they didn’t need to go the escort and porn way like they always do.”