Speaker 1: Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of iHeartRadio Guess
Speaker 1: What Will?
Speaker 2: What's that Mango?
Speaker 1: So I heard this fact yesterday that a lot of
Speaker 1: buildings in New York lie about how tall they are.
Speaker 2: The buildings are lying about how tall they are.
Speaker 1: Well, maybe it's the builders, but they exaggerate about their buildings.
Speaker 1: So you know how guys have this reputation for lying
Speaker 1: about their height. Right of course, So in New York City,
Speaker 1: builders will lie about how tall their buildings are to
Speaker 1: attract a certain client tell which is weird to me,
Speaker 1: and people just buy it. I guess they do because
Speaker 1: the way they trick people is with the elevators. Unless
Speaker 1: you're going to count each and every floor, the only
Speaker 1: way you're going to interact with all the floors is
Speaker 1: through the buttons on the elevators. Right, Yeah, some of
Speaker 1: this tends to be innocent. Some builders skip the thirteenth
Speaker 1: floor because they're superstitious, so you get someone talking about
Speaker 1: like a fifteen story building when it's only fourteen stories.
Speaker 1: But other builders love the grandeur. The first example that
Speaker 1: comes up when you google this phenomena is Trump Tower,
Speaker 1: though the owner and his family supposed to live on
Speaker 1: the sixty six through sixty eighth floor. The building is
Speaker 1: actually ten floors shorter than that. It's only fifty eight stories.
Speaker 2: You know. I feel like I've seen this in other
Speaker 2: places too, like when you walk past first class in
Speaker 2: a plane and you're like, those are rows one through four,
Speaker 2: and then you go back to where we're trying to
Speaker 2: sit and it's immediately like the tenth throw. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: It's so weird. But I'm curious in terms of the buildings,
Speaker 2: like how do they hide the ten floors?
Speaker 1: It's very similar. So the building has a huge, beautiful
Speaker 1: atrium with the tall ceiling, but the elevators start counting
Speaker 1: from floors thirty instead of twenty, which is the actual height.
Speaker 1: Trump Tower also does this where it's supposed to be
Speaker 1: ninety floors, but if you stand at the top, it's
Speaker 1: only seventy two stories high. It's a really common phenomena,
Speaker 1: and the way the buildings trick you is through the elevators.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Elevators are an interesting topic, and I think there's a
Speaker 2: lot to talk about here, from why it's so awkward
Speaker 2: to ride an elevator with strangers to whether the closed
Speaker 2: door button actually does anything to most importantly, why are
Speaker 2: all elevators named otis? This has always puzzled me. So
Speaker 2: we've got a lot to cover. Let's dive in. Hey
Speaker 2: their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Speaker 2: Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend
Speaker 2: mangesh hot ticketter and on the other side of that
Speaker 2: soundproof glass dressed like a lift operator from the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 2: and he's adjusting his desk chair up and down. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's really impressive. He's actually hinted that he was looking
Speaker 2: forward to this and he has really lived up to
Speaker 2: the challenge.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 2: That's our good pal and producer. Loll lull. You are
Speaker 2: looking good. So Mango, what is our first stop on
Speaker 2: this elevator tour?
Speaker 1: So, actually, before we kick off, I've got a little
Speaker 1: bit house key thing to tie up. In our last
Speaker 1: episode on Nine Comic Book Heroes, we talked about this
Speaker 1: terrible character, the red Bee and his secret weapon, this
Speaker 1: ridiculous train bee named Michael who you know, if you'll remember,
Speaker 1: he'd keep him in his belt and unleash him on villains.
Speaker 1: But one of our listeners on Twitter, Charles Porr, pointed
Speaker 1: out that male bees don't sting.
Speaker 2: That's a very good point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it only makes Michael seem more useless.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 1: That just makes it that much better though. So thank
Speaker 1: you so much, Charles. If you DM me your address,
Speaker 1: I'll send you a small package of honey as a
Speaker 1: thank you. But back to elevators, and I want to
Speaker 1: go back to a time when elevators were a little
Speaker 1: more dangerous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, I know modern elevators started to take shape.
Speaker 2: I guess it was, you know, as early as the
Speaker 2: eighteen fifties. But were they around long before that? Like
Speaker 2: when exactly was the first elevator made? So it kind
Speaker 2: of depends on your definition. But if you take just
Speaker 2: the basic concepts of an elevator, like a machine that
Speaker 2: can lift things vertically, then you're probably talking about a
Speaker 2: few thousand years ago. For instance, it's possible that the
Speaker 2: Egyptians used vertical lifts to build their pyramids, but that's
Speaker 2: still speculation. Like the first recorded use of a vertical
Speaker 2: lift that comes from the third century BCE, and this
Speaker 2: is when the mathematician Archimedes built a platform that could
Speaker 2: be hoisted up and down using ropes and pulleys. Now,
Speaker 2: these early lifts obviously didn't run on electricity. Instead, they
Speaker 2: were powered by people, animals, in some cases even water.
Speaker 2: They also weren't used as people movers. Instead, the hoists
Speaker 2: were mostly used to lift building materials or water jugs,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't until a few centuries later that primitive
Speaker 2: elevators were finally used to transport living creatures. This was
Speaker 2: in the first century CE, when Roman gladiators and wild
Speaker 2: animals would ride the lifts from the lower levels up
Speaker 2: to the floor of the coliseum. Right, So even then,
Speaker 2: most people probably wouldn't have trusted their lives to an elevator,
Speaker 2: I would assume at least at that point. And they
Speaker 2: were considered safe enough though for enslaved combatants and lions
Speaker 2: or whatever. But the average citizen would have probably chosen
Speaker 2: the stairs.
Speaker 1: Still, definitely, and there was just still too much room
Speaker 1: for error when you had, you know, people or donkeys
Speaker 1: pulling the ropes. People didn't really start using elevators by
Speaker 1: choice until more reliable systems were developed. For instance, in
Speaker 1: seventeen forty three, King Louis the fifteenth had one of
Speaker 1: the earliest passenger elevators installed in the palace at Versailles.
Speaker 1: He was a ladies man and the private elevator was
Speaker 1: an easy way for his mistress to visit him in secret,
Speaker 1: and he referred to it as a flying chair. Basically,
Speaker 1: all you had to do to operate it was to
Speaker 1: pull a cord connected to a pulley system and from
Speaker 1: their gravity and a series of counterweights would do the rest.
Speaker 2: That's a pretty clever I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And in the early eighteen hundred, steam actually gets incorporated,
Speaker 1: and this ends up being super helpful because steam powered
Speaker 1: lifts were able to move much heavier loads. You're thinking
Speaker 1: about things like coal or lumber and steel, and suddenly
Speaker 1: this could all be raised hundreds of feet in a
Speaker 1: matter of seconds. This new capacity led to major booms
Speaker 1: and construction and mining, and it's actually a big part
Speaker 1: of what made the Industrial Revolution so transformative. Steam powered
Speaker 1: elevator still had one major flaw. They were really dangerous,
Speaker 1: like super dangerous, and if a rope snapped, the lift
Speaker 1: would just plummet, and unfortunately, that happened pretty often all
Speaker 1: through the first half of the nineteenth century.
Speaker 2: Right And it's around that halfway point that an entrepreneur
Speaker 2: and inventor named elisha Otis enters the picture. We mentioned
Speaker 2: that name earlier, and he got into the elevator game
Speaker 2: in eighteen fifty two while working on a project for
Speaker 2: a company that made bedframes. So the client needed a
Speaker 2: way to move heavy manufacturing equipment to the second floor
Speaker 2: of its factory. It was only one problem, though, and
Speaker 2: that was that the equipment they were moving was so
Speaker 2: heavy that the lifting cables couldn't bear the weight for
Speaker 2: all that long. So there was this constant risk that
Speaker 2: the cables were going to snap, and if that happened,
Speaker 2: there would be nothing to stop the elevator from plunging
Speaker 2: straight to the ground floor. So Otis's solution to the
Speaker 2: problem was to develop the world's first safety device for elevators.
Speaker 2: It was basically like a brake system that functioned as
Speaker 2: a fail safe for the lift. So if the cable
Speaker 2: should break, the loss of tension would trigger the release
Speaker 2: of these levers on either side of the elevator car,
Speaker 2: and then these levers would lock and do these series
Speaker 2: of grooves that were along the vertical rails of the elevator,
Speaker 2: and that would sort of arrest the fall and lock
Speaker 2: the car in place.
Speaker 1: So it's pretty innovative, that's pretty amazing. So I just
Speaker 1: want to make sure I have this straight. Like, the
Speaker 1: vertical rails were already part of the elevator design, right, Like,
Speaker 1: they just didn't have that like locking system built into
Speaker 1: them until Otis came along.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. I mean all of the elevators of
Speaker 2: the era were braced on either side by these vertical
Speaker 2: rails that help keep the car steady as it was
Speaker 2: going up or down. And so those rails were completely smooth, though,
Speaker 2: so if a cable broke, the car would just slide
Speaker 2: right down the rails in free fall, which would obviously
Speaker 2: be dangerous and terrifying. And so Otis's breakthrough was to
Speaker 2: carve grooves into the rails and create kind of a
Speaker 2: saw toothed ratchet system that would act as these brakes.
Speaker 2: Industrial companies recognize the merits of the new braking system
Speaker 2: right away, and Otis quickly set to work on filing
Speaker 2: orders for freight elevators. But the public was still unconvinced,
Speaker 2: understandably because it is such a different invention and everything,
Speaker 2: but most people viewed elevators as these death traps, and
Speaker 2: they were unlikely to be swayed from this opinion by
Speaker 2: these confusing diagrams. They were singing and all these technical explanations.
Speaker 2: So in order to really trust such a system, people
Speaker 2: would need to see it for themselves. And so at
Speaker 2: the World's Fair in eighteen fifty four, Elishah Otis allowed
Speaker 2: them to do just that.
Speaker 1: So you're saying that, like fairgoers were actually willing to
Speaker 1: get into these elevators and test the brake systems.
Speaker 2: No, still not at this point. But Otis thought about that,
Speaker 2: I mean, he anticipated that, and so he arranged a
Speaker 2: stunt that would instead put only one person's life on
Speaker 2: the line, and that, of course, was his own. And
Speaker 2: so here's what happened. You're at the Crystal Palace exposition Hall,
Speaker 2: and Otis constructed this fifty foot wooden elevator. Then, with
Speaker 2: some help from none other than Pace Barnum himself, Otis
Speaker 2: gathered this crowd and promised them this death defying stunt
Speaker 2: unlike any they had ever seen. So the crowd is,
Speaker 2: you know, hyped up in everything, and Otis then dramatically
Speaker 2: rides the elevator to the very top, where he then
Speaker 2: ordered an axe wielding assistant to cut the rope that
Speaker 2: held up the elevator. The onlookers were stunned and sort
Speaker 2: of braced themselves for this tragic scene, but thankfully it
Speaker 2: never came. And that's because, you know, of course, to
Speaker 2: their surprise and great relief, the platform dropped just a
Speaker 2: few inches and then came to a complete stop. The
Speaker 2: crowd was blown away by this, but they were also
Speaker 2: skeptical of how reliable the system really was, and you know,
Speaker 2: they thought, maybe Otis just got insanely lucky, and there
Speaker 2: was no guarantee that the brakes would work a second time.
Speaker 2: So Otis performed the stunt again and again and again.
Speaker 2: Every hour of the day that the fair was open.
Speaker 2: He performed this stunt, and in this way, little by little,
Speaker 2: one crowd at a time, Otis won over the public
Speaker 2: and convinced them that elevators were at long last safe
Speaker 2: to ride.
Speaker 1: That is such an amazing stunt, Like it's such an
Speaker 1: amazing pr thing that all you're basically doing is riding
Speaker 1: an elevator.
Speaker 2: Pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm guessing this was a turning point
Speaker 1: for Otis. Like I read that the first passenger elevator
Speaker 1: to use his brake system was installed in New York
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty seven, so it was still about three
Speaker 1: years after the fair, But then the floodgates really open,
Speaker 1: and within sixteen years, more than two thousand passenger elevators
Speaker 1: were operating all across the country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was definitely a snowball effect to all of this.
Speaker 2: And you know, sadly Otis actually didn't live long enough
Speaker 2: to see just how widely embraced his invention became. He
Speaker 2: passed away in eighteen sixty one, just a few years
Speaker 2: after his first elevator was installed in New York. But
Speaker 2: his sons did carry on the family business along with others,
Speaker 2: and they worked to make improvements on that original design,
Speaker 2: including the switch to hydraulic power and eventually, of course,
Speaker 2: to electricity. Now, all of this innovation helps secure the
Speaker 2: elevator's place as one of the most highly traffic transport
Speaker 2: systems in the world. And that's not an exaggeration. According
Speaker 2: to the La Times, the world's elevators now move the
Speaker 2: equivalent of the Earth's population every seventy two hours. Wow.
Speaker 2: If you think about that, every three days, over seven
Speaker 2: and a half billion people take a ride on an elevator.
Speaker 1: That is not something I'd even comprehended. That's pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really crazy and It's especially true of Otis elevators,
Speaker 2: which are still going strong today. For example, the elevators
Speaker 2: in the Eiffel Tower Otis elevators. So are the ones
Speaker 2: in the Empire, State Building, the White House, the Vatican,
Speaker 2: the Kremlin. I mean, the list goes on and on,
Speaker 2: and the company is now one of the two largest
Speaker 2: elevator manufacturers in the world. And that's why if you
Speaker 2: step into an elevator today, the chances are you will
Speaker 2: find that Otis name inscribed on the walls.
Speaker 1: There, which makes a lot more sense than all the
Speaker 1: elevator in the world being nicknamed Otis. But I think
Speaker 1: we should talk some more about the rapid growth phase
Speaker 1: that elevators went through near the turn of the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: You actually mentioned that there were a couple thousands spread
Speaker 1: across the country by the early eighteen seventies, but the
Speaker 1: majority of those were still being used in industrial settings,
Speaker 1: and you'd find the safety elevators in coal mines or
Speaker 1: construction sites, but it was still pretty rare to see
Speaker 1: one in an office building or apartment complex.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the average person didn't come into contact with elevators
Speaker 2: all that often, and that finally starts to change in
Speaker 2: the eighteen seventies though, as business owners begin adding elevators
Speaker 2: to their office buildings, and that's really what launched the
Speaker 2: invention into its next phase, where you start to see
Speaker 2: all the architectural and cultural impacts that elevators have had.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's wild to think about how different
Speaker 1: the cities we know would look if it weren't for elevators,
Speaker 1: Like no skyscrapers, high rise apartments, like all the buildings
Speaker 1: would just be a few stories tall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny when you look back and realized that
Speaker 2: higher floors would you know, they used to be the
Speaker 2: least desirable spaces in a building. Like today we connect
Speaker 2: higher floors with a sense of luxury. They're more private,
Speaker 2: farther removed from the noise of the streets, you know,
Speaker 2: not to mention those bird's eye view of the skyline.
Speaker 2: But before elevators made them more accessible, those top floors
Speaker 2: were seen as inconvenient, like In fact, they were typically
Speaker 2: set aside for either low rent tenants or like the
Speaker 2: in house janitor. So how many stairs you had to
Speaker 2: climb to get to your apartment was really kind of
Speaker 2: a status signifier, like the fewer obviously the.
Speaker 1: Better, exactly, and so when elevators came along, not only
Speaker 1: did those higher floors get much more appealing and much
Speaker 1: more valuable, they also got much higher. So thanks to
Speaker 1: the advent of steel frame construction, and of course thanks
Speaker 1: to elevators, buildings could suddenly be built much taller than before.
Speaker 1: This basically meant that anyone who owned a building no
Speaker 1: longer needed to fight for new land to develop on,
Speaker 1: like that's something that's always in short supply in cities. Instead,
Speaker 1: they could simply build upwards new offices, hotel rooms, retail
Speaker 1: space like there's nothing but air above. So in a way,
Speaker 1: elevators literally shape the cities we know today. I actually
Speaker 1: found this great quote from this guy named Patrick Karajat,
Speaker 1: and he's the founder of the Elevator Museum in New York.
Speaker 1: And according to him, quote, if we didn't have elevators,
Speaker 1: we would have a megalopolis, one continuous city stretching from
Speaker 1: Philadelphia to Boston, because everything would be five or six
Speaker 1: stories tall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting to think about it as this choice
Speaker 2: between a sprawling horizontal city or this more densely clustered,
Speaker 2: vertical one, And it reminds me of this cool Boston
Speaker 2: Globe article that talked about a kind of invisible war
Speaker 2: between elevators and cars that's been going on for the
Speaker 2: past century or so. So the idea is that you
Speaker 2: have these two new technologies that were basically pushing us
Speaker 2: in two different directions. On the one side, you had cars,
Speaker 2: which allowed people to travel horizontally, and the other you
Speaker 2: had elevators, which of course moved people vertically. And city
Speaker 2: planners had to choose which of these new technologies they
Speaker 2: were going to get behind, which you know, which one
Speaker 2: they were going to focus on developing their cities around.
Speaker 2: And if you looked up in an American city during
Speaker 2: the last one hundred years, it's pretty obvious you know
Speaker 2: which one they.
Speaker 1: Picked, definitely. But it's not like cars were left by
Speaker 1: the wayside or anything like. Elevators may have won the
Speaker 1: battle to shape cities, but cars are still the you know,
Speaker 1: transportation of choice in suburbs where the sprawl is much
Speaker 1: less of an issue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess in the end, it's sort of been
Speaker 2: a draw in that sense between those two. But all right,
Speaker 2: so we've seen how elevators have evolved over the years,
Speaker 2: and I feel like we should check out a few
Speaker 2: things about them that have actually stayed the same. But
Speaker 2: before we get to that, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Part Time Genius, and we're talking about
Speaker 2: the eccentricities of elevator etiquette. We talked about the elevator's
Speaker 2: effect on our architecture and daily routines. Now let's talk
Speaker 2: about how elevators affected the people who rode them, Because
Speaker 2: when you think about it, passenger elevators really created a
Speaker 2: new kind of social situation, like one that's strangely intimate
Speaker 2: yet impersonal at the same time. It's always a little
Speaker 2: bit weird to be in an elevator full of people,
Speaker 2: or even more weird to be with one person. But
Speaker 2: you know, this new dynamic raised all kinds of questions
Speaker 2: about what was proper behavior when riding an elevator. The
Speaker 2: one hot debate, for example, was whether a man should
Speaker 2: remove his hat while riding in an elevator with a woman.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm sure you think about this all the
Speaker 2: time and really worry about like should he take his
Speaker 2: hat off as he would in a restaurant or leave
Speaker 2: it on as he would you know, on a train
Speaker 2: or a bus. I mean, it's a lot to think.
Speaker 1: About I don't think I even realized you're supposed to
Speaker 1: leave your hat.
Speaker 2: On a bus, but yeah, leave it on.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting because restaurants and buses are both examples
Speaker 1: of public spaces, right, So for elevators, it was really
Speaker 1: more about whether they were a mode of transportation or
Speaker 1: just another room in a building, albeit a moving room.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of a tough call because both descriptions
Speaker 1: are technically a fit for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true, and I think that was really what
Speaker 2: through people, Like the elevator was a mode of transportation
Speaker 2: inside a building, So which set of rules do you follow? Now?
Speaker 2: Unlike riding a bus, riding an elevator brought unclear expectations
Speaker 2: for social interaction, Like even if you don't know the
Speaker 2: other passengers, you know that they live or work in
Speaker 2: the same building as you, and so there's this sense
Speaker 2: that you should at least acknowledge that in some way,
Speaker 2: whether by nodding or smiling or making small talk or whatever.
Speaker 1: Right, But we never want to be the person to
Speaker 1: make that call, right, Like everyone wants to wait for
Speaker 1: the other person to make the first move in those situation.
Speaker 1: So it always creates this I don't know like anxiety
Speaker 1: or tension or something.
Speaker 2: No, I don't know. I usually just go ahead and
Speaker 2: get in and get everybody a hug, and just I
Speaker 2: get that out of the way exactly. And it feels like, now,
Speaker 2: more than one hundred and fifty years after their invention,
Speaker 2: we still haven't gotten over those feelings of discomfort. It's like,
Speaker 2: despite all the advances in elevator design, the one thing
Speaker 2: we can't seem to resolve is this inherent awkwardness of
Speaker 2: taking this short ride with other strangers.
Speaker 1: So I am curious if you know what causes that,
Speaker 1: like what makes it feel so awkward?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was definitely curious about this. This was actually
Speaker 2: one of the first things we were looking into this week,
Speaker 2: and it turns out there are a few reasons. So
Speaker 2: one deals with something that international tourists here a lot,
Speaker 2: which is that we Americans love our personal space. So
Speaker 2: typically we like to keep at least an arm's length
Speaker 2: of distance between us and other people, and the elevator
Speaker 2: is one of the rare places where that's not always possible,
Speaker 2: and so that's, you know, what brings on some of
Speaker 2: that awkwardness. Now, the other thing that was is a
Speaker 2: bit more universal and that's that most of us are
Speaker 2: at least a little bit anxious of being trapped in
Speaker 2: a steel box, which may sound obvious, and not only
Speaker 2: that you're dangling from the roof by this cable. And
Speaker 2: that's despite the fact that elevators are actually super safe.
Speaker 2: In fact, they are one of the safest ways to
Speaker 2: travel period. So for example, about nineteen hundred people die
Speaker 2: taking the stairs each year, which is just a really
Speaker 2: bizarre fact, but according to Consumer Watch, they were only
Speaker 2: about twenty seven elevator related deaths per year worldwide. Now,
Speaker 2: I gonna be honest, I wouldn't even known it was
Speaker 2: that much. And considering that elevators make roughly eighteen billion
Speaker 2: trips each year according to the La Times, that works
Speaker 2: out to an exceptionally low fatality rate. It's about a
Speaker 2: point zero zero zero zero zero zero one five percent
Speaker 2: per trip. So you know, the awkwardness you feel in
Speaker 2: an elevator is very real, but the sense of danger
Speaker 2: not so much.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean that definitely tracks with what I learned
Speaker 1: this week about the origin of elevator music. So I'd
Speaker 1: always assume that the music was there to calm people's
Speaker 1: nerves and make them less worried about going, you know,
Speaker 1: something going wrong. But according to elevator historians, of which
Speaker 1: there are actually a great many, I found out this week,
Speaker 1: elevator music was really invented to help alleviate boredom and
Speaker 1: to fill that awkward silence that comes from riding a
Speaker 1: lift with strangers.
Speaker 2: I do kind of like the awkward silence was just assume, like,
Speaker 2: of course people will choose that over small talk with
Speaker 2: a stranger, you know, I know what.
Speaker 1: I guess building owners were like, we know you aren't
Speaker 1: going to talk to each other. So here's some music
Speaker 1: to fill that void where I guess the human interaction
Speaker 1: is supposed to go.
Speaker 2: It's too bad it doesn't really work. I mean, in reality,
Speaker 2: there is no escaping the awkward, or at least not
Speaker 2: until you hit the closed door button really quickly when
Speaker 2: you see a stranger coming, just to avoid the whole
Speaker 2: situation entirely.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing I learned about that. You know,
Speaker 1: it turns out that closing the elevator door on a
Speaker 1: stranger doesn't really work, and that's because the closed door
Speaker 1: button and most American elevators is ineffective.
Speaker 2: It actually, I guess sort of makes sense I always
Speaker 2: suspected that was the case. But is this by design
Speaker 2: or did the buttons just malfunction a lot, or like
Speaker 2: what's happening.
Speaker 1: It is by design, so the reason why is pretty interesting. Apparently,
Speaker 1: when the Americans with Disabilities Act was first passed in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, it included a list of requirements for elevators,
Speaker 1: and these are things like raised buttons, braille signs, and
Speaker 1: another requirement was that elevator doors had to remain open
Speaker 1: for at least three seconds, and that way someone with
Speaker 1: the disability would have enough time to get inside before
Speaker 1: the door's closed. Some manufacturers complied with the law by
Speaker 1: ensuring that the closed door buttons don't cut that time short,
Speaker 1: but others just want to step further and deactivate the
Speaker 1: button entirely just to cover their bases. Still, there are
Speaker 1: some exceptions to this. New York City has a law
Speaker 1: that requires that all elevators have to have a working
Speaker 1: closed door button, but the buttons are on a delay,
Speaker 1: so it kind of defeats the purpose. And of course
Speaker 1: other countries have their own laws about closed door buttons,
Speaker 1: so like all the ones in England are fully functional.
Speaker 2: For instance, I mean it makes me wonder why elevators
Speaker 2: even have these if they're all deactivated, why bother with
Speaker 2: having them?
Speaker 1: Anyway, I think part of it is like a placebo effect,
Speaker 1: like a button to mass just makes us feel a
Speaker 1: little bit more in control of the situation, especially where
Speaker 1: when we're in a rush or like, you know whatever.
Speaker 1: But you know, elevators aren't the only place that we
Speaker 1: see this kind of thing. So according to mental Floss,
Speaker 1: and this is what they wrote, quote, buttons placed at
Speaker 1: city crosswalks are often disabled, and the thermostats and many
Speaker 1: office buildings are rigged so that the temperatures can't be
Speaker 1: altered even if the numbers appear to change.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a little annoying, but I can also,
Speaker 2: you know, see the logic there, Like, people can be
Speaker 2: pretty impatient and having this button to push does help
Speaker 2: pass the time, I guess, even if it's not actually
Speaker 2: doing anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, who doesn't like pushing buttons?
Speaker 2: Well, there's at least one other good thing about elevator
Speaker 2: rides that I did want to mention it, And strangely enough,
Speaker 2: it stems from that social awkwardness that we've been talking about.
Speaker 2: But before we get to that, let's take one last
Speaker 2: quick break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part time Genius. So okay, well, so
Speaker 1: you've peaked my interest before the break, and you've got
Speaker 1: to tell me what's the upside to an awkward encounter
Speaker 1: in an elevator.
Speaker 2: Well, in a word, the upside is serendipity. I mean
Speaker 2: that the nature of the experience encourages these these sort
Speaker 2: of chance developments, and sometimes they turn out to be
Speaker 2: really good ones. And you never quite know what will
Speaker 2: happen in an elevator. And so by being squeezed into
Speaker 2: this small space with a stranger, even for a brief moment,
Speaker 2: we're forced to think about and respond to somebody else's existence,
Speaker 2: and that's something we don't have to do very often
Speaker 2: outside of the elevator.
Speaker 1: Is that true, because it feels like I interact with
Speaker 1: strangers in public spaces all the time, Like if I
Speaker 1: go to a restaurant or if I'm in a checkout line.
Speaker 2: Well that's true, but in those cases, the interactions are
Speaker 2: pretty predetermined if you think about it, like you know
Speaker 2: that you'll be interacting with a waiter or a cashier
Speaker 2: or whoever it may be, and you know what to
Speaker 2: expect when you do, like you'll talk about food options
Speaker 2: or how much something costs. But apart from small, intentional
Speaker 2: encounters like that, most of us are actually pretty isolated
Speaker 2: in public spaces. You know, we're either in our cars
Speaker 2: or at our desk, or maybe you're out and about
Speaker 2: and you know, and you see people, but our eyes
Speaker 2: are sort of glued to our phone screens and all
Speaker 2: of that acts as a barrier between us and these
Speaker 2: unprescribed interactions. But in an elevator, all bets are off,
Speaker 2: Like you never know who's going to step in that
Speaker 2: box with you or what they might say or do
Speaker 2: when they're in there. And so that's a good thing,
Speaker 2: I mean, at least in theory that that uncertainty is
Speaker 2: probably where a good deal of the awkwardness stems from.
Speaker 2: But it's also the catalyst for some lucky breaks. So
Speaker 2: think about how many romantic comedies you've seen where somebody
Speaker 2: stumbles into their soul made in an elevator, or how
Speaker 2: many success stories started with an elevator pitch to a
Speaker 2: CEO who couldn't get away because they're right there in
Speaker 2: this box with you, and it's called exactly And you know,
Speaker 2: if that still doesn't convince you that the potential awkwardness
Speaker 2: is worth it. Take it from science. So researchers have
Speaker 2: long look to elevators for insight into all kinds of
Speaker 2: social behavior, like how smiling improves our willingness to stand
Speaker 2: near strangers, or how standing in the back is a
Speaker 2: power play because it lets you observe all the other passengers.
Speaker 2: So elevators or this fertile environment for experimentation, and that's
Speaker 2: exactly because they force us out of our comfort zones.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. I have thought about like elevator experiments
Speaker 1: and like you know, the one where you're facing the
Speaker 1: opposite way or whatever, but I didn't realize that they're
Speaker 1: such a smart place to, like, you know, investigate interactions.
Speaker 1: It does make me think, though, like you know, there
Speaker 1: are these new fangled elevators that with these new inventions,
Speaker 1: and it makes you wonder about how society will interact
Speaker 1: after that.
Speaker 2: And why do you say that, Well, I don't know if.
Speaker 1: You well, I'm sure you've seen these. Actually, there's this
Speaker 1: thing called destination dispatch, and it's basically a way to
Speaker 1: group together passengers who have similar destinations. It's not like
Speaker 1: the current system where you step into an elevator and
Speaker 1: then request the floor you want in from inside the elevator. Instead,
Speaker 1: you select the floor outside from this touchscreen in the lobby,
Speaker 1: and then you're directed to an elevator car that's headed
Speaker 1: in your direction.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I feel like we've seen these, you know, and
Speaker 2: a lot of the sort of new or fancier office
Speaker 2: buildings in New York these days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got Kanye NaSTA is one example. But you know,
Speaker 1: the system is obviously meant to cut down on wasted
Speaker 1: time and energy, but from what you've been saying, like
Speaker 1: it sounds like it might cut down on that serendipity
Speaker 1: as well. If everyone is bound for the same floor,
Speaker 1: it's a lot less likely that a mailroom clerk has
Speaker 1: that opportunity to bump into the executive who who you know,
Speaker 1: might implement or be influenced by their idea.
Speaker 2: I mean that is kind of a bummer, unless, of course,
Speaker 2: you're someone who is just tired of being accosted by
Speaker 2: mail clerks. I mean, it's a big problem these days, mego.
Speaker 2: But I don't want to give the impression that the
Speaker 2: elevator's best days are behind it. In fact, there are
Speaker 2: some new advancements that I'm actually looking forward to checking
Speaker 2: out myself, which feels strange to say about elevators, but
Speaker 2: it's true. So just to think about some examples here.
Speaker 2: You know, a company in Germany has been working on
Speaker 2: a new kind of elevator that moves up and down
Speaker 2: the rails using this magnetic levitation system instead of cables.
Speaker 2: And so not only would this improve efficiency by allowing
Speaker 2: multiple cars to operate in the same shaft since you know,
Speaker 2: they no longer need their own cables, it would also
Speaker 2: greatly reduce the amount of energy it takes to run them.
Speaker 2: And if none of that is a hook enough for you,
Speaker 2: consider this. A traditional elevator can only move up and
Speaker 2: down along the axis of its cable, but a mag
Speaker 2: lev elevator isn't restricted by cables, which means it can
Speaker 2: also move horizontally as well as vertically. So you could
Speaker 2: build this complete loop inside of building and even have
Speaker 2: elevators move between shafts in order to find like the
Speaker 2: fastest route to where they needed to be.
Speaker 1: That's fascinating. So it's basically like real world wonkavators.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much, and it might still be a while
Speaker 2: before we can travel like Willy Wonka. But scientists are
Speaker 2: hard at work on it. I'm pretty sure of this.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm definitely looking forward to that one. But before
Speaker 1: we head out, why don't we do the fact off?
Speaker 2: So, did you know it's illegal to pee in an
Speaker 2: elevator in Singapore?
Speaker 1: I mean, I assume it's illegal to pee in an
Speaker 1: elevator in Singapore?
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, well you're pretty smart, I know, but everybody
Speaker 2: might not know that. But there's more to it. So
Speaker 2: elevators there come equipped with a urine detection device, so
Speaker 2: they're taking this to another level. So no pun intended there.
Speaker 2: So if you do pee, it sets off an alarm
Speaker 2: and the doors slam shut, and then you just have
Speaker 2: to wait there and shame until the police arrive to
Speaker 2: ticket you. I've got to be honest, like, I know
Speaker 2: they go overboard with a lot of things, but I
Speaker 2: do actually kind of find this amazing.
Speaker 1: I really hope they come up with a contraption to
Speaker 1: do that at their pools too, Like all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's like cover close you in.
Speaker 2: All the water drains out and then you're just standing there.
Speaker 1: Speaking of bathrooms, did you know that Japan is actually
Speaker 1: considering putting toilets and running water in their elevators. While
Speaker 1: that sounds like an unnecessary luxury, there's actually a reason
Speaker 1: for it. The country has a ton of earthquakes and
Speaker 1: when that happens, the elevators just get stuck. So it's
Speaker 1: to offer a little bit of relief and dignity in
Speaker 1: those hours that you might be stuck in an elevator.
Speaker 2: That actually, when you first said it, it was confusing, But
Speaker 2: you know what, that actually does make a lot of sense,
Speaker 2: and that's thoughtful to do that, all right. So here's
Speaker 2: one I love. So during the French Resistance, the French
Speaker 2: severed the cables to the Eiffel Tower elevator so that
Speaker 2: Hitler wouldn't take a photo op at the top of it.
Speaker 2: Apparently the idea of climbing over fifteen hundred stairs was
Speaker 2: just enough to keep him away. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: Do you know. There's a subculture of elevator enthusiasts and
Speaker 1: it is really really sweet. It's often people on the
Speaker 1: autism spectrum, and they bond over their love of elevators.
Speaker 1: So they filmed the buttons, They capture how the motors
Speaker 1: sound and were They document their rides on pretty normal
Speaker 1: elevators and sometimes it's and sometimes it isn't. But Slate
Speaker 1: did an article on this, and the author wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: while I have never found my journeys in real life
Speaker 1: elevators to be particularly therapeutic, I find these videos very soothing.
Speaker 2: I could see that that's pretty neat all Right, So
Speaker 2: you've heard of the Burj Khalifa. You know that's one
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty stories, like eight hundred and thirty meters tall.
Speaker 2: I think passive. Yeah, that's the first time I've ever
Speaker 2: measured something in meters. But I've got to convert that.
Speaker 2: So what We'll let Charles are one of the listeners,
Speaker 2: weigh in and give us that fact. So all right,
Speaker 2: So get this. Apparently it's so tall that you can
Speaker 2: watch the same sunset or sun rise in the same day,
Speaker 2: Like you watch it from the ground, and then you
Speaker 2: take their super fast elevator to the top of the
Speaker 2: building and you can actually catch it again.
Speaker 1: Oh man, that is unbelievable. Do you remember when we
Speaker 1: went to go see that eclipse in Nashville. Yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: I remember thinking like, I wasn't that interested in the phenomena,
Speaker 1: and then I saw it and it was so beautiful,
Speaker 1: and I like immediately wanted to jet forward and see
Speaker 1: it again. You know, like, I feel like that that
Speaker 1: kind of has that same feel.
Speaker 2: Oh totally.
Speaker 1: That's a great fact. I'm going to give you today's trophy.
Speaker 2: You know what, I'll take it. I feel like it's
Speaker 2: been a little while, so this feels really good. All right. Well,
Speaker 2: thanks to all of our listeners out there for tuning in.
Speaker 2: We know how hard it is to be stuck in
Speaker 2: your home, so thank you for inviting us in with you.
Speaker 2: That's going to do it for today's Part Time Genius
Speaker 2: for myself, Mango, Gabe and Lull. Take care. We'll be
Speaker 2: back soon with another episode. Part Time Genius is a
Speaker 2: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 2: favorite show.