More details are in on yesterday’s fatal and frightening elevator death. The woman who died was Suzanne Hart, 41, the director of new business and experience at Young & Rubicam. Her two fellow passengers were hospitalized not for physical injuries, but for psychological trauma from witnessing the grisly incident. The building is now closed for repairs. A source tells the Post that the elevator was removed for repair in 2003 after a “hazardous safety violation,” fixed, and then returned to service. The building’s elevators were in violation of safety codes, but city inspectors said that they were “administrative” and don’t actually account for what was essentially a freak accident: The apparently fully functional safety mechanism just didn’t function this one time. That might mean the odds of it happening again aren’t high. But it’s not exactly reassuring, especially if you already spent today rushing with more urgency than usual into an elevator, newly fearful of getting caught, whether that fear is logical or not.
