Stuck In An Elevator: Living It Up, Never Going Down

Perhaps “elevator building” is not all it’s cracked up to be:

Freddy De Los Santos says he dreads asking neighbors to carry him up the stairs when the elevator goes out at his Bronx building.

Just a few months ago, it took three strong backs to get Mr. De Los Santos and his wheelchair up to his fifth-floor apartment.

“They were really nice,” said Mr. De Los Santos, who is paraplegic and lives on the Grand Concourse. “But that’s not their job.”

Across this vertical city, millions of people rely on elevators every day without complaint. But there are hundreds of buildings where the elevators malfunction or break down routinely.

And when they do, all the patterns of life are disrupted.

The elderly miss doctors’ appointments. Frozen food thaws downstairs. Ambulance crews carry patients down dim, steep stairwells.

Mr. De Los Santos, 52, a street musician who plays the flute, says he skips performing and church and stays home, trapped and angry.

“I’m afraid to go outside because the elevator won’t be working when I get back,” he said.

. . .

One must be resourceful to live at Newport House, an apartment building on Parsons Boulevard in Flushing, Queens, the residents say.

The seven-story building is split into two wings, one of which has an elevator that often breaks down, they say.

Tenants in that wing have learned to go to the other side and ride up to the roof, where they cross to their side of the building and take the stairs down.

“Everybody in the building knows how to cross over the roof,” said Carolyn Goldstein, 70, of the seventh floor, who has lived in the building for 28 years. “I think I know the roof better than the elevator.”

Last Christmas Eve, tenants said, preparations for the holiday included carrying their presents across the roof in the cold.

As people tote packages and strollers across the roof, the young help the old, the fit assist the infirm, said Maureen Adler, 49.

“Because of the elevator we’ve become a family,” she said.