Posted on 03/01/2014 7:02:01 AM PST by Borges
For most city-dwellers, the elevator is an unremarkable machine that inspires none of the passion or interest that Americans afford trains, jets, and even bicycles. Wilk is a member of a small group of elevator experts who consider this a travesty. Without the elevator, they point out, there could be no downtown skyscrapers or residential high-rises, and city life as we know it would be impossible. In that sense, they argue, the elevator’s role in American history has been no less profound or transformative than that of the automobile.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
“Otis! My man!”
You wouldn’t need the floor indicator at the doors anymore. You would be able to hear the bull fiddle approaching.
It's been a long time for me to have seen one. I remember the department stores operator would announce what was on each floor from the bargain basement upward for clothing, furniture, appliances, etc. He also had to jiggle it around to make sure the elevator was aligned exactly to the floor. They were just part of the passing scene, now gone forever.
“Am I the last ‘professional’ elevator operator standing? I earned money for my college expenses operating the elevator for J. C. Penney. The bank of elevators eventually was replaced by an escalator and then the store was closed.”
I’m sure there’s a direct cause and effect chain of events here, correct? :)
My dad once worked in a department store that had the crank type elevator, and sometimes on Sundays when they were closed he’d set up displays, make signs, and such and I’d sometimes help out. So I’d too get to run the elevator, sometimes the main one and sometimes the freight one in the rear. And so yes it took some adjustment to get it level. Why the cars weren’t made self leveling years ago, I wouldn’t know. But they had a mystique.
I’d say it took both steel skeleton construction AND elevator machinery (also made with steel), oh and the electricity to make the elevators “go”.
“Sir, thank you for your service. As a kid I marveled at the skill of the elevator operators in Detroit’s skyscrapers, zooming up and down, matching the floor level of the elevator to the building’s floor with a single adjustment. And those snappy uniforms - my dream job. Then they automated the elevators and took all the glamor out of it. Bummer. “
I got a kick out of elevator operators when I was a child as well. They always acted like they were god-like captains piloting riverboat elevators and would brook no dissent, with walking the elevator plank as the implied punishment. In reality of course, they were not much higher ranking than the guy who emptied the waste baskets in the offices.
Stories like this always give me a lift.
Wow! Thanks for that.
and without power, elevators are worthless.
“I love a good elevator”
I think you mean “Love in an Elevator” /Aerosmith
Very interesting, thanks. I recall the Monadnock being architecturally seminal and visited it on lunch hours downtown.
The Flatiron Building in Asheville, North Carolina, still has manually operated Otis elevators. The following is a link to a youtube video that someone made of its operation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPyHbqSWgvI
Precisely. The elevator itself is little more than a pulley, which had been around for millennia. But a mechanism that would prevent a precipitous fall in the event of a cable failure is what made the modern elevator practical.
Reminds of a Henny Youngman joke:
A severely inebriated man lurches into an open elevator shaft,falls two floors, and is momentarily knocked out after hitting the ground. When he comes to, he brushes himself off and yells, “I said, up!”
Yeh, the bottom fell outta the market.
You should be ashamed of that joke, lol!!!!
I know of four elevators in Dallas that were installed 80 years ago and still going. The controls drawings in the machine room were last revised in 1936. The elevator inspectors seal in stuck on the corner of the slate backboard which holds all of the relays.
I have pictures someplace.
First of all, I was a “Miss” during my elevator days. My elevator was in a bank of 4, and we had grills on the side so that the operators could talk to each other between floors if we had no passengers, or if we had a problem.
Our cars did not have buttons. The elevator was operated with a lever. Our inner door was a folding grill, and the outer doors had to be operated at each floor. Although we each had a little folding stool where we could perch, we really couldn’t operate the car when seated because we couldn’t open and close the doors. It required a certain amount of skill to stop the elevator even with the floor where people were entering and exiting. You didn’t want to stop too high, or too low, so that people might trip.
The biggest danger was “falling into the pit”. This might happen if you loaded too many passengers, or descended down to the basement too fast. The elevator would slip off its track and stop about 3 feet below floor level. This required calling for Maintenance who would bring a little step ladder for people to use to climb out. Then Maintenance would have to climb up into the shaft above the highest floor and put the cables back onto the track so that we could operated again. EMBARRASSING!
We did not have uniforms. We wore our normal street clothes which, in my case (considering the era and my age at the time) consisted of a starched cotten summer dress with piles of stiff petticoats underneath. Thinking back, it is a wonder that I had room for passengers with all those petticoats.
My bank of elevators went to 4 floors, a mezzanine, and a basement. The “head” elevator also had access to a fifth and a sixth floor which was just storage and maintenance and is how the maintenance man got up to the top to pull us out of the pit.
It’s been many, many years since I had that job, but I still remember my spiel for calling out each floor. “Second floor. Ladies, girls, and infants wear!” It was a fun job, and I find myself jumpiing to the controls every time I enter one of those operatorless, automatic elevators. After all, I’m a professional! LOL
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