Hundreds Of NYC Elevators Need New Inspections, Audit Says

NEW YORK — More than 1,000 New York City elevators still need new inspections after faulty contractors gave them sub-par checks, a new state audit says.

The city's Department of Buildings has yet to re-examine 1,108 elevators more than a year after auditors found they had been inspected by "ineffective" workers, according to a Monday follow-up audit state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli's office.

The findings came about two months after an elevator crushed a man to death in a Kips Bay apartment building.

"Failure to inspect elevators can be a lethal problem," DiNapoli, a Democrat, said in a statement. "Last year my auditors raised a red flag about poor elevator inspections across New York City, but shockingly, the problems persist. New York City’s Department of Buildings needs to immediately address the problems we found."

The buildings department oversees inspections and tests of the city's more than 70,000 elevators and related devices. The agency generally hires companies to perform required annual inspections, while building owners hire their own firms to perform tests, according to DiNapoli's office. The New York City Housing Authority and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority handle their own inspections and tests.

DiNapoli's June 2018 audit report found at least eight ineffective inspectors who did not work for the buildings department. Auditors recommended the agency go back and re-inspect the elevators they worked on.

But the department only re-inspected 133 of 1,216 elevators touched by two faulty inspectors, the comptroller's new report says. There were 36 elevators handled by the other six bad inspectors, but the department only re-inspected 11 of them and provided support for just six of those inspections, according to the report.

The buildings department is in the process of re-inspecting the remaining devices, agency spokesperson Andrew Rudansky said. The department has "taken the Comptroller’s input seriously" and fired two contractors identified in the original audit, he said.

"Elevators are one of the safest forms of transportation in New York City — and (the buildings department's) strong safety rules and oversight are key reasons why," Rudansky said in a statement.