How NYC Elevator Inspectors Make Your Favorite Carnival Rides Safe

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Days before the opening of the Staten Island Mall Carnival last Thursday, a team of city Department of Buildings inspectors checked every gate, seat and joist on rides with names like the Bear Affair, the Rocking Tug, and the Go Gator.

At the Sky Fall — a gravity-defying pink, blue, and purple ride designated as an “extreme thrill” — inspectors found some minor issues.

One ground bar didn’t have wood underneath, a requirement, said inspector Kevin Esposito, and he also wanted to make sure the lights were working. Almost simultaneously, Ron Lewis found a loose seat retainer that straps riders in. The operators agreed to not let anyone ride in that chair.

“That’s why you gotta check every seat,” Lewis said.

There are dozens of rides set up in New York City for carnivals, festivals, and street fairs each spring, summer, and fall, in addition to permanent fixtures, like those at Coney Island and the Adventurers Amusement Park , the children’s theme park named after the legendary journalist Nellie Bly.

And every one is checked by about 17 building department inspectors from the agency’s elevator department.

While a roller coaster or Ferris wheel might seem much more fun than your average lift in an office building, there are lots of similarities between the two types of mechanical devices.

“There’s gears, there’s belts, there’s cables, there’s limit switches — all those things you would find on an elevator,” Esposito told THE CITY.

But the inspectors take two different approaches to testing; elevator testing is “destructive,” they said, but rides are “nondestructive.”

“With an elevator, we try to break it –—we put weights into it, we slam it, and we try to see what it can do,” Lewis told THE CITY.

Esposito added: “We put it through the worst-case scenario.”

On the rides, they make sure they’re level and balanced, that the safety belts and gears work, that the doors and pins are tight. They think of anything a child could get their hands in, or on, and inspect that, they said.

Earlier in the day, they ran the carousel with three riders, and one of the unoccupied horses came out. It was quickly fixed. Sometimes rides are ordered shut down or repaired before they can re-open. After a full check, the inspectors make deficiency lists to the operators, signed by the owners, then keep it moving. Later in the day, they come back to make sure those fixes have been made.

Last year, the inspectors conducted 280 periodic checks on permanent rides in the city, particularly at Coney Island, beginning in the winter for an April opening, according to the buildings agency.

They also inspected between 700 and 800 temporary rides, and conducted upwards of 5,000 surprise spot inspections, sometimes undercover.

The work is a heavy lift; each ride inspection can take hours, and they’re re-checked any time they move to a new location, from carnival to carnival.

Last year, two people received minor injuries in incidents on city amusement rides. In 2022, three people had minor injuries, according to the buildings department.

Once the inspectors are finished, they often do an in-person check themselves. The inspectors don’t have to ride what they’ve checked, but some choose to. After years reviewing amusements, they’ve picked favorites.

Assistant chief Craig Gualtieri knows the Cyclone in Coney Island takes 1:54 from start to finish, and goes a little faster in the summer because of the heat. He won’t ride it anymore, but he’s ridden the Slingshot 27 times after at first being too afraid. It was on his second ride that he fell in love with it, he said.

“I like the feeling I get flying through the air, it’s such a thrill,” he said.

Lewis, though, won’t ride anything. He’ll stick to the inspections, he said.

After making sure all of the fixes to Sky Fall were done, Esposito and Royden Livingstone, another inspector, strapped in for a ride.

They screamed and laughed as it swung higher and higher through the sky, spinning around and around, before stopping 55 feet in the air. Then the ride held  them upside down for about 10 seconds before it brought them back to the ground, safely.

“Why would I put my name on it if I’m not going to ride?” Livingstone said.

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