A mechanism that was supposed to keep a Queens elevator door in place failed a city inspection a year before two half-brothers plunged to their deaths after sending the door flying off its hinges, officials said yesterday.
The Department of Buildings revealed that city inspectors had cited the elevator at the Lefrak City Complex in Corona on Jan. 16, 2006, for worn gibs – the devices that sit in the saddle below the elevator door and are supposed to keep it from opening.
On Sunday, Julien Jones, 26, and his 24-year-old half-brother, Leslie, sent the door flying off the saddle as they wrestled with each other on the 11th floor of the 18-story building, police said.
Their crushed bodies were found at the bottom of the shaft 12 hours later.
A DOB spokeswoman said the elevator gibs had passed another inspection in October 2006.
The Jones’ relatives, however, lashed out at what they perceived as poor maintenance in the building.
In April 2005, the elevator also was cited by the Buildings Department – this time for dirty conditions in the shaft and cab.
“There have been problems preceding this and they didn’t take care to do the proper work,” said the brothers’ furious uncle, Frank Murphy.
“It should have been fixed. Now, there will be a whole host of elevator repairmen fixing the elevator in the place.”
This wasn’t the first Lefrak City elevator tragedy.
In June 2001, 14-year-old honors student Patrick Fanor died after he fell seven floors down an elevator shaft in an adjacent building. The doors had given way when Fanor crashed into them while horsing around with some friends.
Elevator maintenance was already a hot topic for authorities over the weekend when another man died after being shoved into an elevator shaft in the Chelsea club BED.
Experts said elevator maintenance in general has suffered from the lack of a standardized licensing system for repairmen.
State Assemblywoman Susan John (D-Rochester) said she introduced a bill in 2003 to require licensing, but it did not pass either house of the Legislature.
“Trying to agree on the standards of who can do the work has been difficult,” she said. “Our trained electricians, are they all properly trained and capable of doing service work on an elevator?”
She said she would discuss elevator safety with Gov. Spitzer’s new administration.
Experts such as Patrick Carrajat, an elevator consultant in Queens, have suggested that accidents such as the ones over the weekend could be prevented with a device called a Z-bracket, which reinforces elevator doors.
But Edward Donoghue, the administrator of National Elevator Industry Inc., said it would be difficult to retrofit some of New York’s older elevators with the devices.
It was unclear whether the elevator in Lefrak City had the device.
“It would be almost impossible to put that on existing equipment,” Donoghue said. “It would be extremely difficult to do the engineering on existing door configurations.”
Meanwhile, the Jones’ grieving mother yesterday pored over photo albums of her sons. She said there was no way the devoted brothers would have been fighting seriously before they fell.
“They were just hanging around. They weren’t the type to fight. They were happy-go-lucky, peace-loving,” said their tearful mom, who did not want to give her name.
“They were there hanging around, either play-fighting or horsing around.”