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A commuter takes an elevator on the main concourse at Stamford Transportation Center in Stamford, Conn., on Tuesday May 30, 2023. The other main concourse elevators is currently under construction.
A view of closed off sections at Stamford Transportation Center in Stamford, Conn., on Tuesday May 30, 2023. One of the main concourse elevators is currently under construction.
A commuter takes the stairs at Stamford Transportation Center in Stamford, Conn., on Tuesday May 30, 2023. One of the main concourse elevators is currently under construction.
Commuters take an elevator at Stamford Transportation Center in Stamford, Conn., on Tuesday May 30, 2023. One of the main concourse elevators is currently under construction.
Commuters take an elevator at Stamford Transportation Center in Stamford, Conn., on Tuesday May 30, 2023. One of the main concourse elevators is currently under construction.
Commuters exit an elevator at Stamford Transportation Center in Stamford, Conn., on Tuesday May 30, 2023. One of the main concourse elevators is currently under construction.
A view of one of the elevators currently under construction on the concourse at Stamford Transportation Center in Stamford, Conn., on Tuesday May 30, 2023.
Commuters take the stairs at Stamford Transportation Center in Stamford, Conn., on Tuesday May 30, 2023. One of the main concourse elevators is currently under construction.
A view of closed off sections at Stamford Transportation Center in Stamford, Conn., on Tuesday May 30, 2023. One of the main concourse elevators is currently under construction.
A commuter takes the stairs at Stamford Transportation Center in Stamford, Conn., on Tuesday May 30, 2023. One of the main concourse elevators is currently under construction.
STAMFORD — Nasir Ali always takes the stairs.
At least he does now, after he and his girlfriend were trapped for about 25 minutes inside the elevator at their Glenbrook apartment complex last month.
Ali’s girlfriend has cancer. He said the stressful situation made her short of breath, and they have avoided the building’s elevators ever since — even if that means walking six flights of stairs to and from his sixth-floor apartment.
“Last week, the second (elevator) wasn’t working for like three or four days. I just saw now it’s working,” Ali, 25, said on Friday. “I said, ‘Nah, I’m not gonna use this.'”
According to data obtained by The Stamford Advocate, Ali and his girlfriend aren’t alone in their experience. From January 2018 through May 2023, Stamford fire crews responded 1,173 times to fix a problem with an elevator.
Faulty elevators have come under a spotlight over the past year. Stamford doesn’t have a policy holding landlords accountable for inoperable elevators, but the city’s Board of Representatives is on the cusp of passing one Monday night.
The new ordinance would apply only to buildings with residences. Those property owners are required to have one working elevator at all times. Unless they issue a warning for maintenance 24 hours in advance, landlords have three days to fix the elevator before they begin to accrue $250 in fines each day.
The clock would start ticking when officials verify the building has no working elevator, said Stamford Director of Operations Matthew Quinones, who submitted the proposed ordinance. He said the ordinance is meant for “noncompliant” landlords who hinder tenants from being able to access their homes. Elevators can be a necessity for people with disabilities who live in residences above the ground floor.
“I think our perspective is not necessarily that we want to execute more fines,” Quinones said. “We want to be able to have the opportunity to provide some degree of leverage to push building owners to repair elevators in a timely fashion.”
Officials with the Stamford Fire Department, who respond to elevator calls, agreed that a formal policy is a good idea. But they said they weren’t sure malfunctioning elevators are among the city’s most pressing public safety issues.
“We do about 12,000 calls a year. If we say about half of them are (emergency medical services) calls, that’s 6,000 calls a year left for other things,” Assistant Fire Chief Mike Robles said. “230 (calls) is definitely a very, very small percentage of our other calls besides EMS.”
Still, for those like Ali who have been stuck in an elevator, it can be an unsettling experience.
Citywide, the total number of elevator breakdowns has remained relatively steady since 2018.
The highest number of reports in one year, 281, happened in 2018. The number dipped during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic to 183 and 184 in 2020 and 2021, respectively. It rose back to 231 reports last year.
If the elevator is repaired without fire crews arriving, the breakdown is not reported, Fire Chief Trevor Roach said. Fire officials said they believe that most elevator-related emergencies result in a 911 call.
“I would assume that probably the people who are trapped … their first call goes to 911. So, once (the dispatcher) gets to us, we’re responding,” Robles said.
About 92 percent of the reports were for simple system malfunctions.
In other cases, people were trapped inside the elevators. In 84 of the reports, crews had to remove someone from the top of the elevator. People sustained injuries or medical emergencies 16 times.
During the more than five-year period, there were 10 addresses where authorities were called 20 or more times because of elevator problems. Stamford Transportation Center, the state’s busiest passenger rail station, topped the list with 65 incidents. The most problematic residential building was Residences at Bedford, at 1435 Bedford St., with 33 incidents – one of which was Ali and his girlfriend.
The Connecticut Department of Transportation, which owns the train station, is working on upgrading five out of the building’s six elevators, spokesperson Shannon Burnham said in an email Friday.
The majority of incidents happened in Downtown Stamford and the South End — where many of the city’s high-rise residential and office buildings are located.
Residential buildings logged the most entries near the top of the list. Six of the 10 addresses with the most reports were apartment complexes and one was a condominium association.
There’s one landlord with two properties near the top of the list: Charter Oak Communities, the city’s housing authority, owns both Clinton Manor and Quintard Manor, two senior apartment complexes. The buildings had 23 and 20 reports filed, respectively.
Stamford’s largest developer, Building and Land Technology, had one property with more than 20 reports filed. The South End-based company’s Beacon Harbor Point at 1 Harbor Point Road had 21 incidents in the five years.
The Stamford Transportation Center would not be affected by the new ordinance because it’s not a residential building.
More than half of the 65 incidents at the train station happened before the pandemic. Ridership on the Metro-North Railroad’s New Haven Line dipped 80 percent in 2020, and this February, the state’s Department of Transportation began shutting down one elevator at a time for the ongoing repair project, which Burnham said will be completed by summer 2024.
Previously, Quinones said, the city had no formal process for residents to follow when their elevator broke down.
“I think it just kind of manifests individually, however someone would try to connect with the city without knowing specifically where to go — the building department, health department — and then elevated to the powers that be,” Quinones said. “Which is more reason to have an ordinance to clarify who has authority under these types of circumstances.”
Under the new ordinance, the city’s chief building official, Shawn Reed, would issue the fines.
According to state law, new elevators must be inspected by the Department of Administrative Services’ Bureau of Elevators before being used, and looked at again at least every 18 months as long as they’re in service. While they’re in service, cities and towns are required to make sure elevators are safe.
However, the state only requires elevators to be kept in service if they were originally required to provide accessibility within the building, said Jesse Imse, a spokesperson with the department. The access requirement would be enforced by the local building official.
If landlords fail to perform their legal duties, Imse said, tenants can file a lawsuit against them in superior court. Additionally, any elevator accident resulting in serious injury or death must be reported to the state, which may then investigate and potentially put the elevator out of service until it is repaired.
Fire officials said that elevator issues happen most often in older buildings with older elevators.
“Some of these elevators in these buildings go back to the (1910s) and ’20s. There (are) some in the city that are close to 100 years old,” Roach said.
The older technology may skew more problematic, but citywide, Roach said it’s not unusual for heavily used elevators to have a maintenance issue every three or four months.
jared.weber@hearstmediact.com
Jared Weber writes about growth, development and economic mobility for the Stamford Advocate. He came to the Advocate in 2023 from the Lansing State Journal, where he covered breaking news in Michigan’s capital. Outside of work, he can often be found playing some type of racket sport, listening to music or meeting the demands of his cat Mitty.
