When Rob begins to climb back down into the elevator through the trap door, his back is to the side of the elevator where the door would be located. The shot then cuts to the inside of the elevator and Rob is entering with his left-side now to the elevator door. His back is to a side wall.
While stuck in the elevator Rob reads off the list of men who inspected the elevator during its yearly inspection all the way up to 1957. This means that Rob and a pregnant Laura were held up in 1957. However, the season three episode Happy Birthday and Too Many More (1964), filmed in 1963 and aired in February of 1964, in which Richie celebrates his eighth birthday, establishes that Richie was born either towards the end of 1955 or very beginning of 1956. Thus getting stuck in the elevator couldn't have happened any later then early 1956.
When Rob is atop the broken elevator, he shouts "Hello, is anybody there?" Inside the elevator, Laura and Lyle (Don Rickles) respond as if it's a rescuer shouting to them and rush toward the elevator doors. At this point, the camera pans right and reveals that the elevator "juts out" to the right at an angle indicating that this elevator is "L" shaped. Elevators are "cube" shaped and do not angle off in extra directions.