The only reason Roger Peters got his free air conditioner is that he happened to run into a retired detective in the elevator of his building. 

Peters, 70, wanted to take advantage of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Get Cool NYC Program, a $55 million, multi-agency initiative that promised to deliver 74,000 free air conditioners to low-income seniors who would be unable to visit cooling centers during the coronavirus pandemic. 

The retired Broadway producer spent months dialing numbers and pleading with city workers who told him the program didn’t exist, only to wait hours for promised deliveries that never came. 

It was only because the detective told Peters to contact his City Council member’s office that he was finally able to build up enough support to get the unit delivered Wednesday, he said. 

“I was really on the verge of tears because this has taken months,” Peters said. “I felt like weeping, the nightmare had ended.” 

Peters is one of the lucky ones as more than 10,000 New Yorkers who opted into the program are still waiting. 

Roughly 45,000 people were selected by the city to receive an air conditioner, yet as of Thursday 34,294 units had been delivered, an NYC Emergency Management spokesperson said in a statement.

“The City is committed to getting eligible New Yorkers a free AC to beat the summer heat safely and to resolving any issues that arise through our dedicated Customer Service Call Center,” the statement reads. “[We] are working with multiple vendors to aggressively to install the remaining units.”

But it remains unclear how many of those units will be delivered in time for a summer predicted to be unusually hot. 

A Manhattan resident named Donna, who declined to share her last name, said Thursday when she tried to call the city’s cooling program she was put on hold and told 142 people were ahead of her in the queue. 

“This has been my ordeal,” Donna said. “It’s a rough time being a senior.”

And City Council Member Helen Rosenthal said she’s received a steady stream of calls from seniors and other vulnerable residents still trying to get their air conditioners. 

“This is deeply troubling to us as air conditioning is an absolute public health necessity for seniors and those with medical issues, especially during a pandemic,” Rosenthal said. 

“We are seeing the same logistical issues and delays that plagued the City's emergency food delivery program for vulnerable residents this spring.” 

Peters, who lives in NYCHA Wise Towers, said the air conditioner delay put his health at severe risk because of a rare cellular disease that makes him break out in painful sores under his arms and on his legs in the heat.

His strong anti-bacterial medications take their own toll, as he learned about 20 years ago when he was first treated and then lost cognitive skills such as the ability to form sentences, Peters said. 

“It’s a hell of a thing to live with,” Peters said. “It’s dreadful.”

Years of hard work have returned these assets to Peters, who can recount on exactly what day famed theater critic Frank Rich published a rave review of his production of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night."

But the mounting heat this week only put more pressure on Peters as he waited for his unit to arrive.  

“I was so worried,” Peters said. “The rashes had started to appear.” 

That frustrating wait is one that continues for Linda Rios (“in her 80s going on 55”), for Maria Terrero, 69, Donna, 60, and for the 142 patiently waiting on hold Thursday afternoon. 

A NYCHA worker told Rios there weren’t any air conditioners left; a Home Energy Assistance Program told Terrero to wait all day in her home for an air conditioner that never came; a Department for the Aging representative told Donna she’d been made to submit pages of paperwork the city never needed, the women said. 

Rios, also a NYCHA resident, said while her family is scared for her, she is terrified for the many seniors who live in her building and could be overwhelming its wiring with the many fans they’ve plugged into a limited number of outlets. 

“Nobody is getting the food, no one’s getting the AC,” Rios said.  “I’m probably gonna get it in November … You have to laugh because it’s such a critical, sad issue.”