City Housing Officials Questioned Over Elevator Repairs
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In the wake of an accident that killed a Brooklyn boy, the City Council held a hearing on housing project elevator safety Wednesday.
New York City Housing Authority Chairman Tino Hernandez was grilled by council members on the conditions of project elevators.
A recent report says 75 percent of NYCHA elevators have failed or nearly failed inspection in the past five years.
This summer, five-year-old Jacob Neuman died when he fell down an elevator shaft.
NYCHA officials said advancements in safety will be made.
"We are going to expand our ability to be able to use remote monitoring for our elevator system," said Hernandez. "We are going to put cameras in them as well. We are going to review our capital budget to improve and replace our elevators and we are going to hire more staff to concentrate on the most problematic developments."
While the hearing was going on downtown, residents at the Taylor-Wythe Houses in Williamsburg were still having safety problems with their elevators.
One woman said she was been stuck in the elevator even after the fatal accident, and only recently did crews repair it by wedging a piece of wood between the shaft and the elevator space.
"It's taken two months and some change for it to really start working," said Taylor-Whyte resident Tonya Johnson. "Because it's had the sign up there for the longest time that it's going to be fixed ASAP, and ASAP has not been until this past weekend."
NYCHA officials said that elevator was fixed Wednesday night and that problems relating to a specific elevator can be reported to their centralized call center at 1-718-707-7771.