Woman trapped in Elevator for 3 days in NYC Townhouse

imasoftov

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 8:55 am

crust wrote:

It doesn't say he did notice either. It doesnt say he was concerned that she didn't reply to texts or answer the phone for 60 hours either.
Makes you think how much he noticed.

That she could be there without anyone even looking for her is what bothers me the most.

It doesn't say anything EITHER way.

Maybe the editor cut a whole paragraph about how the first thing he did was finish all the beer in the refrigerator and then headed out to a bar for more with his mistress, maybe it says how he spent the time hanging "missing" posters, or maybe the reporter didn't have any information about what he did until he went to the hospital.

ra_mom

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 8:56 am

crust wrote:

I thought he was very flippant about her well-being when interviewed and asked how she was doing. Could be he it doesn't mean anything. But I feel bad for her either way.

Blessing1

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 9:33 am

It says in the article that the elevator is 3ft x 4ft. It seems to me that maybe she got into the dumb waiter instead of the elevator.

nchr

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 9:36 am

Blessing1 wrote:

She shlould "sue" her husband as well. Which husband doesnt check up on his wife? Let alone for 3 days??? Something is fishy here.

That doesn't sound odd at all. Not everyone constantly talks to their family, and most people don't assume a worst case scenario if spouse who works away from home doesn't pick up for a few days (I.e. maybe she is busy, maybe she is tired, etc.)

nchr

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 9:38 am

crust wrote:

If someone isn't due home, three days is not a long time to not respond. People get busy.

Blessing1

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 9:40 am

Nchr, a spouse isnt just someone. Normal couples worry about each others and check up on each others. 3 days, even 1/2 a day is a long time for couples not to hear from each other. You dont get busy for 3 days and not call your spouse.

smile12345

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 10:27 am

Blessing1 wrote:

In usual circumstances, couples are living together. You really can't compare the dynamics when a spouse is living away from home long-term, including weekends.

Amarante

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 10:44 am

Blessing1 wrote:

It says in the article that the elevator is 3ft x 4ft. It seems to me that maybe she got into the dumb waiter instead of the elevator.

This is a private townhouse with a very small elevator - it would have been retrofitted at some point and probably is the size of a closet. Could well have been a closet at some point.

Elevators which aren't monitored 24/7 are supposed to have a means of communicating with the outside world and evidently this elevator wasn't in compliance.

I'm a cynic but even as a cynic I think the family will take responsibility. This woman had been a housekeeper for the family for 17 years so I am assuming she is not going to have to sue; the family is not going to kick her to the curb but will take care of her to the extent possible. The daughter who was the one who discovered the housekeeper seemed genuinely distraught.

Somewhat off topic but another horrible NYC story is the woman who stumbled on the subway stairs because she was shlepping a stroller on the stairs and died. The baby was found unconscious but appears to be okay.

Last edited by Amarante on Wed, Jan 30 2019, 12:14 pm; edited 1 time in total

FranticFrummie

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 11:59 am

I live alone, and sometimes I don't realize that my phone battery has died. I worry that someday I will have another stroke or serious seizure, and no one will find me in time.

To be honest though, I'm actually more worried about who will look after my cat and two dogs.

Raisin

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 12:09 pm

Theres a Roald Dahl story with almost exactly this scenario. (manhattan house with elevator that breaks down)

ra_mom

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 12:10 pm

Amarante wrote:

This is a private townhouse with a very small elevator - it would have been retrofitted at some point and probably is the size of a closet. Could well have been a closet at some point.

Elevators which aren't monitored 24/7 are supposed to have a means of communicating with the outside world and evidently this elevator wasn't in compliance.

I'm a cynic but this woman had been a housekeeper for the family for 17 years so I am assuming she is not going to have to sue; the family is not going to kick her to the curb but will take care of her to the extent possible. The daughter who was the one who discovered the housekeeper seemed genuinely distraught.

Somewhat off topic but another horrible NYC story is the woman who stumbled on the subway stairs because she was shlepping a stroller on the stairs and died. The baby was found unconscious but appears to be okay.

Yes the old dumbwaiters in townhouses are often converted and this must have been changed to a tiny lift for the homeowners.

nomismommy

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 12:45 pm

If my husband didn't try to find me after I'm gone for a day I'd kick his tooshie to the moon!!!!

Blessing1

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 12:57 pm

Amen nomismommy!!
Bh I dont have to worry about that.

Moonlight

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 1:02 pm

I don't think we have to start a campaign for their shalom bayis. You have no idea what their marriage is like. Don't work yourself into a fit about it.

FranticFrummie

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 1:37 pm

Moonlight wrote:

I don't think we have to start a campaign for their shalom bayis. You have no idea what their marriage is like. Don't work yourself into a fit about it.

STBX loved to "check up on me" and micromanage my life. I felt like if he could, he'd plant a GPS tracker on me. When anxiety and paranoia turn into controlling behavior, that's not love, that's smothering.

anonymrs

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 1:52 pm

Is anyone else curious about the unidentified male who declined to allow entry to an inspector on Monday?

Mevater

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 3:26 pm

Hmmmmm. Interesting. The Stephens family is the family that "Bankrolled" the Clintons.

Meet The Family That Bankrolled Clinton
By Barbara Demick

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - The night Bill Clinton was elected president, the 27-story Worthen Bank building lit up the skyline here with red, white and blue lights spelling his first name.

The bank had good reason to crow.

Worthen is partly owned by the Stephens family, one of the richest in the United States. And the family, headed by oilman and investment banker Jackson Stephens, and their businesses did more than anyone to bankroll Clinton's political ascendancy.

Early in the game, the Stephenses raised $100,000 in Arkansas to get Clinton's candidacy up and running. Then last spring, when Clinton was trailing both George Bush and Ross Perot, Worthen Bank supplied the cash-starved campaign with a $3.5 million line of credit.

Jim Wells, a vice president in Merrill Lynch & Co.'s Memphis, Tenn., office, evokes a revealing aphorism about money and politics:

"Money is like rain. It is not just getting the rain, but when you get it that counts. And (the Stephens money) was like rain from heaven.

"Nobody knows how influential Mr. Stephens will be in the next administration, but I would be surprised if his counsel isn't called on from time to time."

The centerpiece of the family's $1 billion empire is Stephens Inc., one of the largest investment banking firms off Wall Street. In addition to their 38 percent interest in Worthen Bank, the family owns stakes in oil and natural gas, utilities, nursing homes, waste management, diamond mining and hog farming.

BOTH SIDES HAD COMMON `BOND'

President Clinton has hundreds of relationships with businesses and individuals that will be dissected over the next four years. But few bonds are so intricate as those that tie the former Arkansas governor to the state's most influential family.

Throughout Clinton's tenure as governor, Stephens Inc. handled many of the state's bond sales. Stephens' subsidiaries and employees helped Clinton through a tight 1990 gubernatorial race, contributing at least $42,000, according to campaign finance records.

Stephens Inc. also loaned $100,000 to the inaugural. And the Clinton campaign has kept up to $55 million in federal election funding in Worthen Bank.

The Stephens businesses are often represented by the Rose law firm, where Hillary Clinton has been a partner. Until the mid-1980s, they owned Arkla Inc., the Shreveport, La., natural-gas utility from which Clinton tapped chairman Mack McLarty as his White House chief of staff. Their investment firm serves as business manager to the Bloodworth-Thomasons, the Hollywood couple who helped choreograph Clinton's public image.

Jackson Stephens, 69, declined an interview request. But his son, Warren, played down the firm's political clout.

"We have not seen any benefit from it," said Warren Stephens, 35, who succeeded his father as chief executive officer of Stephens Inc. five years ago. He conceded, however, "I'm sure there will be some business to walk in the door" as a result of the Clinton connection.

The Stephens fortune was built by Jackson's older brother, Witt, who died a year ago. Arkansas historians describe Witt as the kingmaker in state politics.

"In this state you are looking at what is basically a 19th-century oligopoly where a small group of interlocking business interests controls everything," said Susan Power, a political science professor at Arkansas State University. "No one is as successful at politics here as the Stephenses."

Bob Tucker, manager of the Little Rock office of A.G. Edwards & Co., a national brokerage firm, said the Stephens' influence "cannot be overstated."

NOT ALWAYS FRIENDLY TO `THAT BOY'

When Bill Clinton burst upon the Arkansas political scene, a bright comet fresh from Yale Law School, the Stephenses were not easily impressed. An acquaintance recalls that Witt had a condescending attitude to the young Clinton, even referring to him as "that boy."

Roy Reed, an Arkansas writer, says Clinton's attitude was "kind of standoffish. He wanted it to be known that Witt Stephens couldn't call the shots." Still, the Stephenses continued to prosper under the Clinton administration.

Roy Drew, the investment adviser and a frequent Stephens critic, said a relationship was quickly cemented by mutual interest: The Stephenses wanted to sell bonds. Clinton saw the issuance of bonds as a way out of fiscal problems.

"It is the new way politicians can make friends with the business community and get things done. Rather than tax and spend, you borrow and spend," Drew said.

During the 1980s, figures supplied by Securities Data Corp. show Stephens Inc. was involved with approximately 61 percent of the $7 billion worth of bonds issued in Arkansas, more than any other underwriter.

Occasionally, the Stephens' handling of these bond issues drew public criticism.

With Clinton's support, Stephens Inc. devised a creative plan to bail out Arkansas' ailing student-loan authority. But the state's auditor, Julia Hughes Jones, raised a stink.

She complained that the plan - which called for state retirement funds to buy $100 million in student-loan-authority called during the 1990 gubernatorial race bonds - was a rotten deal for the retirees. She also thought Stephens' fees were too high, and that the firm had a conflict of interest in simultaneously trying to sell the bonds while serving as an adviser to the retirement funds.

She said a string of woes befell her after she opposed the deal. Her department's budget was rejected by the state assembly for the first time ever. She said she was told by an assemblyman she had to fire Roy Drew, who, as a financial consultant, had criticized the deals. A collection agency for the student-loan authority started harassing her with telephone calls over a student loan to her daughter, even though her daughter had not been late on a single payment, Jones said.

"Some Stephens employees got pretty hateful where I was concerned," Jones said. ". . . I don't know it for a fact, but I think they were behind my budget being held up."

Under fire, Jones gave in. The retirement funds bought $100 million of the bonds and another $100 million in bonds to bail out two other agencies. The deals earned Stephens $1.8 million.

"The criticism, frankly, is from people who didn't understand the bond issues," Warren Stephens said.

If the Stephenses were initially lukewarm towards Clinton, all that had changed by the 1990 gubernatorial race. Clinton was in a close race with Sheffield Nelson, a lawyer with whom the Stephenses had had a bitter business feud.

Campaign-finance records in Arkansas show that a dozen different Stephens corporations wrote checks for the maximum allowed to Clinton - $1,000 each. Most of the money was given on the same day. Combined with contributions from Stephens employees, at least $42,000 was raised - about 3 percent of the total cost of the race.

Warren Stephens recalls that he had gotten a panicky call from Clinton a few days before the election asking for help for some last-minute television advertising.

"It was clear that he had a case of pre-election jitters," said Warren. "He told me he wanted to raise $50,000 and asked me if I could raise $10,000, and I said sure."

http://community.seattletimes......19[b]

crust

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 7:43 pm

FranticFrummie wrote:

Come on FF! You are resourceful!
We gotta find a solution to this. You cannot be left alone like this.
Lets brainstorm.
Can I call/text you every morning to check up on you? Itll be 3'ish in Isreal. If I don't hear from you I will call whom?
I'm serious. כל ישראל ערבים זה לזה. We are responsible for each other.

I dont want the qouted scenario to ch"v happen.

Mevater

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 7:56 pm

anonymrs wrote:

Is anyone else curious about the unidentified male who declined to allow entry to an inspector on Monday?

Im way more curious to read the book that hasnt been written yet:

"What the Pay for Play Clintons did to repay the Stephens family KINDNE$$".

http://community.seattletimes......82819

veiznisht

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 11:36 pm

Raisin wrote:

I didn't know they made elevators with no emergency buttons. Maybe this was a really old one.

The elevator I got stuck in had an emergency button... It just didn't really work. Someone heard me yelling.

Edit: it was an oldish building in the diamond district, but elevator wasn't THAT old.