Residents of NYU Coral Tower dorm: What’s up with those elevators?

Every morning, the over 300 NYU students living in Coral Tower Dorm face a dilemma: to wait for the elevator that might never come, or to use the stairs instead.

“I usually listen to music when I wait for the elevators,” said Amber Poon, a senior who lives on the 14th floor of Coral Tower. “Usually the next thing that comes to mind is, should I take the stairs?”

The residence hall, located on 3rd Avenue and 14th Street, is among the most popular upperclassmen dorms because of its prime location — easy access to seven subway lines and with an NYU shuttle bus stop right downstairs. The two elevators responsible for carrying students up and down 16 floors in this more than 12-year-old building, however, do not seem to function as well as everyone expected, and thus has become the residents’ constant rant.

For students like Poon who live above the 10th floor, the dilemma is evident — you never know when the elevator will come, but you also know that walking down those 225 steps takes the same time as waiting for the elevator. Plus, you probably don’t need the morning workout at 9am, not just yet.\

“I waited for the elevator for more than ten minutes last Tuesday,” said Charisa Gunasekera, who has lived in Coral Tower for almost a year. “I was five minutes late for my Introduction to Theory class at 12:30 pm and I had to give a presentation at the beginning of the class.”

Gunasekera is not alone. During rush hours, the wait for the elevator can expand from the normal 1-2 minutes to 9-10 minutes.

“It’s the worst when I am running late to class and the elevator wouldn’t come,” said Vivien Li, who lives on the sixth floor.

Complaints about the issues with the two elevators in Coral Tower Residence Hall have been circulating among NYU students for more than three years. Currently, no evidence exists to suggest the issues have been improved or resolved.

An Oct.12, 2014 post on NYU Secrets Facebook page reads, “Coral Hall’s elevators, which have been plagued with maintenance, have now both shut down completely. I live on the 12th floor. Damn it.”

“The building is old. Its elevators are old,” said Demon McGeachy, an NYU Security Officer at Coral Tower for over three years. “The traffic alone makes them slow and prone to break down.”

McGeachy’s comment, together with what students wrote online, seem to sum up the problems with the elevators: the traffic, the frequent breakdown caused by excessive use and the scheduling conflicts with the building superintendent.

“I try to do it after 10 o’clock,” said the building super who did not want to be identified. “After ten is not rush hours. They can use the stairs. It’s not that bad,” he said as he shrugged. He said he usually carried the recycling bin downstairs to the compactor room in the basement between 10 to 11am every day except for Sunday, during which he locked the elevator for 30 minutes to an hour.

“I took the stairs down once,” said Alyssa Won, who lives on the 14th floor. “It was at the beginning of this semester, when they were running a diagnosis on one of the elevators for 20 minutes. I think the super was using the other elevator to carry trash down, because the elevator skipped me on my floor.”

“We are committed to providing quality services and programs that enhance residential student success in safe and inclusive living learning communities,” NYU claims on its housing website. The instance with the maintenance of the elevators in Coral Tower suggests a different situation.

The Coral Tower Residence Hall Director Melissa Davison declined to be interviewed as a result of NYU’s regulations toward press and media.

“It’s interesting that the elevators break down so often. You would expect a building like this to be looked after and maintenance should have stuff like this covered,” said Amber Poon.

The underlying conflict between the building operators and its residents persists.

“There are 365 kids in this buildings and students don’t get normal schedule as residents of a usual building do. So the elevators get used a lot more than elevators in normal residence buildings,” the super said. “They are up and running and are still better than most of the elevators in other residence buildings, I would say.”