Patrick Carr is a known elevator expert in the five boroughs.
NY1 met him in Long Island City to find out about a new requirement for every elevator in New York City.
"This was one of the earliest versions of what we are looking for," Carr said, holding the device. "which is door-lock and gate switch monitoring."
Come January, nearly every elevator in the city must have a door-lock monitoring system, like this one:
It makes sure elevator doors are closed before the car can start moving.
Experts say devices like that one can prevent tragedies like the one last month when a 30-year-old man was crushed by an elevator in a Manhattan building.
"It's like having a check engine light, if you will, on your car," Carr said. "99.9 percent of the time, these two devices are sufficient. But for that 0.01 that can kill someone, that's the protection we are putting in with the unintended movement devices."
Gross: And it makes sure the elevator doesn't move if the doors aren't closed?
Carr: We do not want the elevator to move if the door is open.
But just months before the deadline, NY1 has learned the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is far from meeting the requirement.
75 percent of the authority's elevators — 2,400 to be exact — still need the device.
"I have concerns that NYCHA is in danger of breaking the law when it comes to elevator safety," Bronx Councilman Ritchie Torres said. "NYCHA's had ample time to comply with the building code when it comes to door-lock monitoring, and instead NYCHA has been dragging its feet when it comes to elevator safety."
In a letter to NYCHA's federal monitor this week, Torres said, "The Housing Authority is in danger of breaking local law," adding that the process of getting these devices within the authority has been "deeply dysfunctional, even by the usual standards of the Housing Authority."
Torres cited a NY1 investigation, which found the authority was plagued by thousands of elevator outages every year.
In response, a spokesperson for the housing authority said: "The age of NYCHA elevator equipment, coupled with delays related to finding qualified and interested vendors, have proved challenging. Despite difficulties with the procurement process, the Authority is working diligently to identify appropriate vendors through new bids to complete door lock monitoring installations as soon as possible."
NYCHA told us it is securing a new vendor to install these devices today and they hope to get all this work done in three months, although that seems an uphill climb at this point. NYCHA did not confirm as of this writing who the vendor was or how much the contract would pay it.
The city buildings department said it would not take elevators out of service if the housing authority doesn't install the door-lock monitoring devices in time, but the department said NYCHA would receive violations and potential fines down the road if the agency does not install the devices by January 2020.
NYCHA's federal monitor has an elevator team to oversee them, but the monitor's office has not responded as of this writing to confirm if it has seen Torres's letter.
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