Hah, yep. Drowning in quicksand is faster.

To be fair, they only had a weekend to build it, so they had to cut corners

/s

My theories are (and I have no qualifications for this)

1. make it bad to deter able bodies folks from using it
2. since it's literally underneath the street, there's no room above the elevator for extra mechanics (and maybe a similar concept for the bottom, where it'd be too deep? )

But yeah, it sucks.

Cool. So yeah, maybe some blockage. It sounds like you don't have any visibility to where the water exits though (under the sidewalk?), So may be a bit harder to fix. Can you run a snake/auger up the pipe and see if anything is lodged?

Sounds like the pump is blocked (assuming when the water was warm you heard something like the pump on. It staying on, and water not decreasing would indicate a block.

First thing id check, with the pump unplugged, is to see if the intake is blocked. We put a pump in our basement during a renovation, and turns out a lot of debris from the renovation wound up in the reservoir, blocking it.

I'd use your hand first, but then also check narrower parts with a flat head.

After that, plug it in, pour a bucket of water or two in, and see if the pump turns on, and if it does, if water gets evacuated.

If water doesn't leave, then you may have a blockage in your pipe. Depending on where it exits the building you may be able to check this out yourself.