[Alberta's Child]

Interesting article. But I’d suggest that it wasn’t the elevator that ushered in the skyscraper age in America: it was the use of steel frames for construction in place of the wood frame and concrete block construction that was typical of buildings at the time. If you go into older neighborhoods of a city like New York you’ll find tons of 2-3 story buildings that couldn’t be built any taller with concrete blocks.

[hoosierham]

Europe has quite a few building of more than three stories standing for hundreds of years ,no elevators and no steel frames. Seems about 7 floors was the usual limit of construction material and techniques.

No doubt elevators are more important than the steel frame in skyscrapers because no one would build a structure if it couldn’t be easily used;and climbing 40 flights of stairs several time daily would be ridiculous!

[Flick Lives]

Actually, there is an interesting synergy with steel structures and elevators. You need a steel frame to go much above 7 floors, or walls become ridiculously thick to support a concrete or block frame. But there is little point in building much higher unless you have elevators to move people up to those higher floors. Of course the real break thru made by Otis was constructing an elevator with automatic safely features to prevent the dreaded free-fall.

[catnipman]

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”.