After grabbing drinks on the 96th floor of the former John Hancock Center, Phil Bird, his wife, sister and her fiance got into an elevator with nine other people and headed to the ground floor.
They almost made it.
Around the second floor, the elevator suddenly dropped a foot or two and stopped. Debris crashed against the roof and it sounded like the elevator was “caving in,” Bird said. “It went down seemingly fine,” said Bird, 37. Then the elevator “felt like it dropped suddenly about a foot or so.”
After several calls to building security and finally police, fire crews pried open the elevator’s door and helped the people get out through a 4-foot gap. “It shook us up,” said Bird, who lives in Ravenswood with his wife. “It put a damper on the whole thing.”
The incident on July 21 was one of two involving elevators in the building that weekend. Friday night into Saturday, five people were stuck in an elevator when the door would not open, building officials said.
No one was injured in either incident at the building, now known by its address 875 North Michigan Avenue. Building officials said they all had been inspected last month.