A luxury residential building at 20 Exchange Place in Manhattan, bang in the heart of the financial district of downtown New York has become a nightmare for its residents. More than 750 apartments in the high rise building are facing terrible difficulties because of lengthy elevator outages, over months now. The City Bank-Farmers Trust Company Building was constructed in 1931 and was one of the tallest buildings in New York City. The 59 story building boasts of some iconic memories- and was the original home for National City Bank — which would later become Citibank. Today it stands tall with more than 750 luxury apartments. But since November ’21, it has been plagued by frequent and inconvenient elevator outages, as a result of which, residents who have mobility issues, are unable to leave their homes. They report that elevator services are sometimes non-existent for floors above the fifteenth- for hours on stretch. It’s extremely frustrating for residents, some of who pay USD 5000 a month for a one bedroom flat! Now even normal life has been disrupted. The owners of the building, DTH Capital have been reported to say that Con Edison, whose electrical equipment has been installed in the building, is causing the issue. Con Edison says, it has not found any issues after repeated testing. “To date, we have not been presented with any plausible theory as to why the elevator problems, which have developed since work to install a new elevator system began, are related to Con Edison equipment or service,” the electric company said in a statement. Con Edison added that it had hired a nonprofit called the Electric Power Research Institute to assist in its investigation. However, the owners of the building say that ‘ the elevator’s operating boards are routinely burned out and must be replaced often’, so they have hired elevator mechanics to be on-site 24 hours a day to expedite repairs. The buildings property management company is also being changed, and Rose Associates, a new property management company, is taking over management of the building after complaints from residents about the previous management group, First Service Residential’s inability to handle the elevator issue.
Source: News
