Hell elevator
Deadly Wash Hts. lift questioned as illegal
EVIDENCE mounted Sunday that the elevator that crushed a discount store worker was a deathtrap installed under shady circumstances.
Jose Fernandez, 43, was killed while loading boxes Saturday at La Reguera Dominicana when the freight elevator suddenly lurched upward, squeezing the life out of him.
Brian Houser, an elevator constructor with the International Union of Elevator Constructors Local 1, suspected the lift was installed by unlicensed workers.
The discount store is only two stories, and the city Buildings Department has no records regarding an elevator at the site.
“You guys can grab a tool bag and install an elevator right now,” Houser said at a memorial for Fernandez at the W. 182nd St.,Washington Heights, store.
Hours later, inspectors with the Buildings Department and the Department of Investigation appeared at the site, photographing the roof from an adjacent building.
Several people estimated the elevator was installed sometime in the past six months to a year.
A close friend of Fernandez, Tony Sosa, 24, said he’d heard the owners of the business had previously asked Fernandez to repair the malfunctioning elevator.
“Not even the owners will go back there,” Sosa said. “He was the only one to go back there.”
One worker said the owners had the elevator built to access a new storage space on the second floor hidden behind large yellow signage. A DOI official at the scene confirmed that work was done on that floor illegally.
Fernandez’s family was shocked by the death of the hard worker known by many as “Morenito” and “Flaco.”
“We’re very distraught,” a woman identifying herself as Fernandez’s sister told the Daily News. “We’re trying to figure this out.”
The owner of the store is Ortal Salman, according to records.
A man named Eli Salman, who lives at a residence listed as belonging to Ortal in public records, threatened a Daily News reporter over the phone.
“I’m coming home soon and I do not want to see you there,” Eli Salman said to the reporter seeking comment at his home in Gravesend, Brooklyn. “You better be gone when I’m back or I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Sosa said Fernandez lived alone, sometimes worked seven days a week and regularly sent money back to his elderly parents in the Dominican Republic.
“I remember the other day he bought a back brace because he had pain from working so hard,” Sosa said. “He was embarrassed about it.”
He added that Fernandez seemed to like the owners of the store — though they worked him like a dog. “The bosses never did any work. (Fernandez) did all the work,” Sosa said. “He was just trying to make a dollar.”