HORSEPLAY TURNS FATAL AT ELEVATOR

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HORSEPLAY TURNS FATAL AT ELEVATOR

By MARK BULLIET and JOE McGURK
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January 19, 2005 -- A Washington Heights man died following a six-story plummet down an elevator shaft last night, police said.

Clide Ortiz, 21, of West 176th Street, was roughhousing with friends in the sixth-floor hallway of a building at 3609 Broadway just after 6 p.m. when he hit the door, police said.

The force of the jolt from Ortiz's 6-foot-2, 275-pound body dislodged the steel door from bottom, police said, and Ortiz slid through the opening.

He died at Harlem Hospital 45 minutes later.

The victim's father, Daniel Luperon, said his son "was like a little kid, always playing around with everyone."

"We don't know how it happened. The only thing we know is Clide is dead," Luperon, 45, said.

"It's unbelievable because no one expects a young, beautiful life to go away like that for a stupid accident."

Ortiz, a graduate of Brooklyn Tech HS, was working toward an electrical engineering degree at Manhattan Village Academy, his father said.

Luperon claimed Ortiz's friends, who saw the accident, told him the elevator doors simply opened on the empty shaft and Ortiz fell in.

A Buildings Department spokeswoman said the site has been cited for seven elevator violations since August 2003.




CB9M Chair's Note:
Obviously the NY Post doesn't know that this address off West148th Street is in Hamilton Heights, CB9M