Exclusive | Elevator issues at NYC high-rise mean breakdowns, noises and lots of taking the stairs: residents

Sometimes it’s better to take the stairs!Residents at a Queens rental complex say elevators have been a scary, noisy mess for a decade — with locals trapped inside three times just last month.The pair of rent-stabilized, affordable buildings at Hunter’s Point South in Long Island City have just nine breakdown-prone elevators for nearly 1,000 apartments — sometimes with no air conditioning or a working intercom, locals claimed.Getting stuck in the elevator has become so common it’s become “a rite of passage,” said Matt Aaron, a tenant association leader who has lived in the complex since 2018.“If you’re stuck, too bad,” said Aaron, 37, adding that the call button for help to the front desk doesn’t always work when residents find themselves in a jam.“The management said they are monitoring the cameras … but the front desk staff has to attend to other duties,” he added.“When there is a problem, they don’t take us seriously.”Two of the nine long-plagued elevators finally received an upgrade last month after a cable snapped and trapped a woman and child between floors in 2024 — but even the upgraded cars have since trapped other victims, tenants said.“None of the elevator buttons worked,” said one resident, who said she was trapped in an upgraded elevator on June 14.She was able to use the call button to call the front desk — which allegedly alerted the elevator company before the FDNY.“Eventually they got no response from the elevator company — makes sense, it was 11 p.m.

— so they called the FDNY, and they broke me out a few minutes later,” she said.Several residents lamented to The Post about recurring outages, leaving some lifts to only stop at certain floors.They are routinely out of service altogether, residents said.“One of the elevators, for a good couple weeks, was literally dropping, like a bungee cord,” resident Chris Szeles said.Szeles, 56, said she was stuck for more than an hour when the problems began...