IThis is the story of a phone that no one can figure out.
Encased behind a metal panel in the elevator of the Rector Street pedestrian bridge, it is the emergency phone for use if the elevator gets stuck. The inability to get the device to work is also the reason that the elevator, installed in the bridge last September, was grounded for months.

		The elevator went into service only last month after the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) hired a guard to patrol the bridge and installed a bell in the elevator in case someone needs to alert him. No one can make the phone work. Not the BPCA, which is responsible for maintaining the bridge; nor the State Department of Transportation (DOT), which built the bridge; nor Motorola, which built the phone; nor Verizon, which provides the phone service. Constructed after Sept. 11 to improve access between Battery Park City and the rest of Lower Manhattan, the bridge, which was supposed to be handicap-accessible, was built last spring with no elevator. Four months later, the elevator was installed—with no phone.
But DOT and the Authority would not allow the elevator to be turned on without a phone. If a person got stuck, there would be no way to call for help. It took five more months for DOT to install the phone. But making it work was another matter. That was BPCA’s job, DOT said. Then came the real confusion. The Authority requested service from Verizon on Feb. 21. It didn’t work. Questioned by Community Board 1’s Battery Park City Committee in early March, the Authority said that the phone had been programmed incorrectly and would be reprogrammed. But that didn’t do the trick. Looking for a solution, the Authority sent an employee to a local Verizon Wireless store to discuss the problem. According to the Authority, the salesperson said that the Motorola equipment in the elevator required old-fashioned analog service, while Verizon only offered digital service Downtown. Early last month, the Authority, saying it was eager to get the elevator running, assigned the security guard to the bridge between 8 a.m and 6 p.m. and the elevator began operating during those hours. The Authority said it was continuing to try to figure out how to overcome the digital-analog divide. (When the bridge was being planned, the Authority, the city and the DOT promised the community board that a guard would be posted on the bridge around the clock. That plan was scrapped after the agencies couldn’t decide who was responsible for providing the security.) In response to an inquiry from the Trib, David Samberg, a Verizon spokesman, said that the digital-analog explanation made no sense. “It sounds strange to me,” he said. “When we sell phones, they have the ability to go digital or analog. I’ve never heard of something like this before.” One week later, Samberg reported that his hunch was confirmed. “What we think, from the conversations we’ve had with Motorola and the BPCA, is just that the phone has to be programmed correctly.” Samberg said he and a Motorola technician planned to do that very soon.t