Story By: Don Lehman
The Post Star/Glenn Falls NY
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A couple's first moments of wedded bliss got off to a dubious start Thursday afternoon when they, friends and relatives -- got stuck in the elevator at City Hall.
The wedding party, whose names were not available, packed into the elevator around 2:30pm after a wedding ceremony in City Court, which is on City Hall's third floor. Unfortunately, the group apparently overloaded the elevator and it came to a halt between the third and second floors as it went down, said Glens Falls Fire Chief Raymond Ives.
The 14 people, including several children, were in the locked elevator for 10 to 15 minutes before Glens Falls firefighters used a key to open a door and positioned a stepladder for the passengers to use to climb down to the second floor. They were all checked out at the scene and no one required any medical treatment, Ives said.
"it looks like it was way overloaded, " Ives said.
Glens Falls Judge Richard Tarantino performed the ceremony for the couple, who were in their 30s. He said he went to lunch with his wife after the ceremony, and was surprised to come back to City Hall around 3:00pm to find fire trucks in front of the building and members of the wedding party still milling about.
"There was a good crowd of people, nice folks, " Tarantino said.
The 108-year-old building's elevator is known to be finicky, and malfunctions occasionally. Tarantino said, several years ago it was shut down for nearly three months. John Ward, Glens Falls' building and code enforcement official said repairs on the elevator about three years ago included the installation of a new piston that has solenoid to act as a safety that stops it and prevents it from moving if it's overloaded.
"It had to have been over the limit for that to kick in," Ward said. "With that solenoid, there's no danger of it falling."