Up: The History of the Elevator

As a couple of viewers have noted, the London Colosseum was based on the Roman Pantheon, not the Greek Parthenon. I am sorry for the error.

I swear the history guy could make anything interesting.

The history of elevators has had its ups and downs.

Most city firehouses have a fire fighter that is nicknamed Otis. The “Otis’s” are familiar with elevator mechanics and carry override/master keys and are the go to person during elevator emergencies.

There I was, dozing off out of boredom in history classes in high school. And here I am today, binge watching history made interesting. Developing interest is key in teaching stuff. Thank you!

As a professional musician and record producer, we used to say: "You know you've made it when you hear your tune in an elevator".

And this is why The History guy is awesome on so many levels

I'm old enough to remember department store elevators that announced the various items at each stop.

Elevators kept "Girl from Ipanema" (in)famous for decades.

Thanks for an interesting subject. My father worked for Otis Elevator from 1940 until 1979 with a 2 year break serving on a RCN Korvette from 1943 until 1945 during the Second World War. He worked his way up from draftsman to the one of the youngest plant works managers at 28 at the Hamilton Ontario Otis Elevator plant (the original Otis Elevator factory was based in Yonkers, NY). In the 1960's he was promoted and transferred to Otis corporate HQ in New York City in the International Division. He retired from Otis at 55 in 1979 as Vice President of Corporate Production. He passed in 1982 at 58 years young. I also worked for Otis Elevator from 1980 until I was laid off in 1992 but worked on many elevator projects including the engineering team for the "inclination" elevators installed at the Luxor Hotel, in Las Vegas.

Another building that owes it's growth to the elevator: the hospital. Horizontal hospitals would take up too much space, vertical hospitals allow for much more efficient movement.

Laughed out loud when Elevator Music played instead of Ye soundtrack! Delightful!

I’m impressed when he mentioned the Shard building in London he referred to its elevators as “lifts”. Nice switch in nomenclature.

The first elevator I ever rode in was in the 1950s, it had an operator. The most interesting elevator I rode in was the one in the Gateway Arch in St Louis. It resembles a barrel and turns as it ascends and descends.

I thought I knew the history of the elevator. Now I do. When I was a kid in the 1960’s in South Carolina my mother was a manager of one department in a regional chain department store. It had three above ground stories and a basement. There was a small elevator probably close to 5x8 feet that was attended by a sweet black lady with white gloves. The control was a vertical wheel like device that had a handle and mounted on the wall. Pushing the handle counter clockwise made the elevator descend and pushing clockwise made it rise. She had to time it just right to stop the elevator even with the floor and she was always spot on. Then she would manually pull back a thick brass “screen” and open the door. Being the sweet kid that I was she would let me handle the controls but my timing wasn’t comparable to hers and I usually had to bump the control a time or two to get it situated properly. As we jounced up and down she would look down at me and smile. Growing up in the 60’s was awesome!

Thank you sir, once again ....I happen to be an elevator tech in NYC and have been for over 33 years. My company, Schindler Elevator along with Otis and Many others, have been using steel belts as of late, much lighter than steel ropes, and there are elevators in use that use magnets, the same theory behind maglev trains. We here in NYC have several buildings that are well over 100 floors, and there are many the world over. The computers that control elevators are quiet sophisticated and are hard to compare to units of old. In my early days, I saw everything from water hydros to drum elevators. You did a fine job with the history and I throughly enjoyed your deep dive into what I find to be a fascinating field.

I remember how old I suddenly felt when I heard a Beatle song on an elevator.

"How's business?" Otis: "Up and down"

When I was a kid the Sears in Bangor had an attended elevator and one day I was allowed to go to the toy department on my own. Being a rather nerdy kid I headed to the elevator to see its operation but the attendant was not there. I had seen the elevators operation many times before so I got on board and took myself to the 5th(?) floor without incident. I don't think elevator operation was all that difficult if a nerdy 8 year old could figure it out.

Your channel reminds me of Paul Harvey's rest of the story.