NY Post- An ad executive taking the elevator to her Midtown office like any other day was crushed to death in front of two horrified fellow passengers yesterday when the car suddenly shot upward with the doors still open.
Suzanne Hart, 41, a top exec at Young & Rubicam, was halfway aboard an elevator in the ground-floor lobby of 285 Madison Ave. when suddenly it shot upward like a bullet.
Hart fell forward into the car, part of her body inside and part still outside the entryway, said authorities. The elevator — its doors still open — then got stuck between the building’s first and second floors.
Inside the elevator, the man and woman stuck with Hart were forced to look on in horror as she died just inches away — a scene so harrowing that both were left “in severe distress,” said Fire Lt. Glenn Berube, one of the first rescuers on the scene.
The surviving woman “was crying . . . She was so physically shaken, she looked like she was convulsing. It was very traumatic for her,” Berube said.
Though they were not physically hurt, both witnesses were hospitalized for treatment of psychological trauma.
It was hours after the 10 a.m. accident before workers could remove Hart’s body from the scene.
The elevator had been taken out of service in 2003 after Department of Buildings inspectors found a “hazardous safety violation,” a city-government source said. But that unspecified problem was corrected long ago, said the source.
City records indicate that the building’s 13 elevators — known to workers as creaky and scary — have piled up 56 violations in the past 11 years. Most were cleared up.
However, inspectors in June found several unspecified “administrative” violations of safety rules regarding the elevators.
City sources said the violations — though still listed as “open” on Department of Building records — appear to offer no explanation for yesterday’s tragedy.
Hart had everything going for her — a loving family and a solid career as one of the agency executives responsible for bringing new business to the worldwide advertising giant.
“She was a fantastic young woman,” said her grieving father, Alex Hart, who was flying to New York last night from his home in Florida.
“She was a talented woman. She had a lot of family and friends who loved her,” the distraught dad said between tears.
“I’m grateful for every day I had with her. I’m just sorry it happened so soon . . . I miss her.”
Suzanne moved about a year ago from Manhattan to a brownstone apartment in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, with her boyfriend, Chris Dicksen.
“She’s a beautiful person, and I don’t have words for this,” Dicksen said.
Just the day before she died, Suzanne had lunched with Young & Rubicam’s Global CEO, David Sable.
She was “someone I worked closely with, truly respected and, quite simply, adored,” Sable wrote in a memo to employees.
Hart grew up in California and graduated from Knox College in Illinois.
Away from work, she was interested in landscaping and had just completed a two-year course at New York Botanical Garden in The Bronx.
After yesterday’s accident, employees were evacuated from the building, which is expected to remain closed today.
Young & Rubicam, which owns the 25-story building on Madison Avenue at 40th Street, is preparing to move to a new location near Columbus Circle.
