MANHATTAN — The Madison Avenue building where Young & Rubicam advertising executive Suzanne Hart died in a horrific elevator accident earlier this month will partially reopen in the new year, according to a published report.
But only the upper floors of the company's headquarters at 285 Madison Ave. will be accessible when the building reopens on Jan. 3 — the lower floors, which house the prominent firm itself, will remain closed until the DOB completes its investigation and the elevators are once again operational, according to WCBS/Channel 2.
Hart's death on Dec. 14 — in the hours after electrical repairs were made to the elevators — shook the city and devastated her colleagues and loved ones.
Sources said that as Hart boarded the elevator at the firm where she had worked as the director of new business, her foot got caught in the gap between the car and the lobby floor.
The elevator suddenly shop up leaving Hart caught between the car and the wall of the shaft between the first and second floors.
The California native, who lived with her boyfriend in Brooklyn Heights, died shortly afterward.
At an emotional ceremony earlier this week, Hart's colleagues remembered her as "nice" and "smiling" and her picture was on display in the building's lobby.
While the probe into her death continues, Y&R will work out of another office on Park Avenue, according to the report.
Investigators are focusing on computer equipment that was replaced and electrical equipment that was recalibrated on the elevator in the hours before Hart was killed.
And they are conducting a full-scale investigation of the work of the company that did the repairs, Transel Elevator.
DOB officials said that a violation was issued for the elevator, which was last inspected in June, in 2003, but the problem had since been rectified.
The 13 elevators at the building, which is owned by Y&R, have been cited dozens of times for problems.
