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Source: St.迷你倉 Louis Post-DispatchDec. 15--ST. LOUIS --Cathy Strobel said she was watching the news when she learned that the "King of South St. Louis," beloved musician and photographer Bob Reuter, had plunged to his death in a downtown building's elevator shaft.Reuter, 61, who had been moving into the building that spanned Washington Avenue and St. Charles Street, had stepped through the elevator doors in a dark hallway, but no elevator was there. He fell 18 feet down the shaft on Aug. 3."I was shocked," said Strobel, the president of City Photo Group, which controlled the corporation that owned the building when Reuter died. "There weren't supposed to be tenants in the building."Strobel had repeatedly tried to clear the eight-story structure of tenants. But that effort may have been complicated by a dispute with a business partner, developer Jeff Edwards, who lived in the building. Strobel was in court seeking to have Edwards evicted when Reuter died. She had successfully sought to shut down the building's 95-year-old freight elevator in February, but someone had put it back into service.A review of public documents shows that government workers, including city building inspectors and state safety officials, had visited the building at least three times in the eight months before Reuter died. And yet, tenants remained there using the same elevator that had been shut down by authorities.Strobel said she was disappointed the city didn't do more to make sure the building was safe. "Why didn't they have the fire department conduct an inspection for life safety?" she asked in a recent interview. "The life safety issues were left unresolved."But Frank Oswald, the St. Louis building commissioner, said the city's inspections found nothing at the building dangerous enough to trigger a deeper look by the fire department.Reuter's death did. A fire inspection conducted after the musician died found 12 fire code violations, including insufficient lighting, lack of sprinkler system, obstructions in the upper level stairways and corridors, and "occupying premises without occupancy permit."A state fire inspector also found that someone had removed a padlock and replaced fuses that had been removed to prevent the elevator from operating.Strobel, who was present for an inspection in March, and city officials agree that the elevator was locked and the shaft closed when inspectors were present. Edwards, who was once an executive of the former Post-Dispatch parent company, did not return several messages from a reporter.A city condemnation order was placed at the property in 2010. It lists the building address and does not reference a specific unit. For at least a year before the accident, documents show, the building's owner was operating as if floors two through eight had been condemned.But last week, Oswald said the condemnation applied to only two specific units in the building, not the whole place. He conceded that the order itself, which remains in place, should have specified the units and that it should have been lifted after the people who had been living in those units vacated the property."I was having trouble getting insurance because of that condemnation," Strobel said. "I couldn't get a redevelopment started because they placed that condemnation. If someone looks at the (city's building database website), that condemnation is there."Strobel continued: "It wasn't a civil issue. Somebody died. That death was so preventable."Maggie Crane, a spokeswoman for Mayor Francis Slay, said the building's problems were the responsibility of the property owners. She said it was up to them to remove people from the building when necessary and to keep the property safe."Someone died because someone snipped a lock that was put on there by a state inspector," she said.Who did that and why is part of an ongoing investigation, Crane said.WARNINGCity Photo took control of the building at 1129 St. Charles Street in 2001. Strobel and her husband own City Photo, along with 50 percent shareholder Edwards. Their primary business is renovating historic buildings.The partnership was troubled. By 2011, court documents show, Edwards, who lived on the building's seventh floor, was removed as an officer and director of the company. City Photo later sued Edwards, claiming he was preventing the company from accessing the building."Upon information and belief, Edwards is renting space in the (building) to individuals for residential purposes without occupancy permits," City Photo alleged in a court document filed on Oct. 13, 2012.It continued: "(The building's) condition is unknown but appears to be rapidly deteriorating and is subject to an increasing number of issues including a condemnation order, constituting a waste of corporate asset. ... City Photo may be subject to liability for the violations of City ordinances and other issues occurring at the (building) and has no means to stop or remedy them."The matter was resolved eventually after Strobel was allowed into the building.By January of this year, an elevator expert hired by Strobel concluded the building's freight elevator needed to be shut down."There are no exemptions in the code to permit the operation ofmini storagethis elevator in the current condition. This elevator should be locked out of service immediately," warned Greg Sacks of Superior Elevator Inspections & Consulting in a Jan. 2 email to City Photo.Sacks noted there was no car gate and no emergency communication system. He found no safety circuits or structural components designed for safety, such as suspension ropes, safety mechanisms, according to the email.Four days later, Edwards filed paperwork with the state to register the elevator and make its operation legal, according to documents from the Missouri Division of Fire Safety. He wrote that he was the contracted developer of the property and that the elevator's use was for business. Strobel, the City Photo president, sought to stop him."Mr. Edwards is a shareholder in the company but is not an officer and has no authority to submit any documents or engage the company in any activity," Strobel wrote to the state's elevator safety unit in January. "He is leasing space to other residents in the building without the company's approval because there is a condemnation in place by the city of St. Louis on floors 2-8."On Feb. 8, state elevator inspector Vince Daus arrived at the building and removed the power to the elevator. He also padlocked and "red-tagged" it, which means it can't be legally put back into service unless by a state inspector, according to state documents.In March, Strobel filed termination of tenancy letters for everyone in the building, demanding that they immediately leave. Edwards was served with an eviction notice on March 22, records show. In May, Strobel filed court action for "unlawful detainer," seeking to have a judge force Edwards from the building. That action was pending in court when Reuter died in August.Despite the court actions, several tenants, including Edwards, remained in the building. By early March the elevator was operational again -- but it was clearly in need of repair.Ellie Shepley said she was at the building for a party in early March and got trapped on the freight elevator for about 45 minutes with a large group of people as they left. She said the elevator went straight to the basement and wouldn't open."It was obviously broken," Shepley said. "We started screaming up the shaft."Eventually, she said, people in the building used a crowbar to pry open the doors and allow the trapped passengers to escape.ACCIDENTIn August, Reuter, the popular front-man of the rock band Alley Ghost, was hauling his belongings in to the once-disabled freight elevator and up to a fifth-floor studio area of the building.One resident said Reuter took charge of operating the elevator as he moved in."(The elevator) had its quirks, obviously," said Mark Stephens, Reuter's close friend and roommate. "Bob said he used to operate an elevator at the Famous and Barr, and that's why he was so good at it."Stephens said he had visited the building many times doing work for Jeff Aeling, who lived in the building. He said Edwards did him a favor by allowing him and Reuter to move into the building over the summer.Stephens said he didn't know who had put the elevator into service, though he said he had seen Edwards and a maintenance man working on it.Aeling, who said he lived in the building for 15 years, said the elevator had always been in service while he had been there. He said he was out of town when officials said they red-tagged it in February. But after he returned in the spring, he said, the elevator was being used."I had never seen a red tag on it," Aeling said.Aeling also said he had no idea who had removed the lock from the elevator.Missouri's "abuse of elevator safety law" forbids anyone from putting an unregistered or unsafe elevator into service without approval from the Missouri Department of Public Safety.St. Louis Fire Department Capt. Norman Hercher reported that a maintenance man told him the elevator had been locked for several months. Then, Hercher said, an unidentified tenant of the building told him the elevator was being used for freight."This struck me as odd because the maintenance man said it hadn't been used and was locked for a few months," Hercher wrote in a report.Edwards, who once served as vice president of Pulitzer Publishing, hasn't responded to numerous requests for comment. Messages were left on his cellphone, with neighbors and with two attorneys who have done work for Edwards.Ronnie Cox, who said he worked at the building for Edwards doing maintenance for about two years, told the Post-Dispatch that the elevator was always in operation while he worked there."I never had the knowledge to turn it on," Cox said in an interview. "But it was running the entire time."The building went into foreclosure after Reuter's death. It is now owned by BW Taylor Properties in Washington, Mo., which last month won a default judgement against Edwards for $24,000 in back rent and damages.The new owner, with the elevator finally shuttered, rented a crane and a crew in recent days to move out the belongings of residents who had remained in the building.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Visit the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at .stltoday.com Distributed by MCT Information Servicesself storage