WEBVTT - How did P. T. Barnum Trick the World into Riding Elevators? 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:06.200 Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.160 I Guess what Will? What's that Mango? So I heard 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:16.080 this fact yesterday that a lot of buildings in New 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:19.520 York lie about how tall they are. The buildings are 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.280 lying about how tall they are. Well, maybe it's the builders, 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:26.119 but they exaggerate about their buildings. So you know how 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:28.520 guys have this reputation for lying about their height. Right 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:30.880 of course, so in New York City builders will lie 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:34.160 about how tall their buildings are to attract a certain clientele, 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:36.760 which is weird to me, and people just buy it. 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:39.600 I guess they do because the way they trick people 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:42.040 is with the elevators. Unless you're gonna count each and 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:44.239 every floor, the only way you're going to interact with 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:46.919 all the floors is through the buttons on the elevators. Right, 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:49.800 Some of this tends to be innocent. Some builders skipped 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:52.520 the thirteenth floor because they're superstitious, so you get someone 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:54.840 talking about like a fifteen story building when it's only 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:58.880 fourteen stories. But other builders love the grandeur. The first 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:01.160 example that comes up when you google this phenomena is 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.520 Trump Tower, though the owner and his family supposed to 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:07.680 live on the sixty six through floor. The building is 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:11.320 actually ten floors shorter than that. It's only fifty eight stories. 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:13.280 You know. I feel like I've seen this in other 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:16.240 places to like when you walk past first class in 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:18.679 a plane and you're like, those are rows one through four, 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:20.520 and then you go back to where we're trying to 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:24.240 sit and it's immediately like the tent throw. Yeah, exactly, 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:26.840 it's so weird. But I'm curious in terms of the buildings, 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:30.040 like how do they hide the ten floors? It's very similar. 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:33.200 So the building has a huge, beautiful atrium with the 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:36.720 tall ceiling, but the elevators start counting from floors thirty 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:39.399 instead of twenty, which is the actual height. Trump Tower 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:41.440 also does this where it's supposed to be ninety floors, 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:43.400 but if you stand at the top, it's only seventy 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.360 two stories high. It's like really common phenomena. And the 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.000 way the buildings trick you is through the elevators. You know. 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:51.760 Elevators are an interesting topic, and I think there's a 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:53.960 lot to talk about here, from why it's so awkward 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:57.280 to ride an elevator with strangers, to whether the closed 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:01.200 door button actually does anything to most hortantly why are 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:04.720 all elevators named otis? This has always puzzled me. So 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:19.160 we've got a lot to cover. Let's dive in. Yeah, 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.040 he their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:33.160 Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:35.600 friend Mangesh Ticketer and on the other side of that 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:39.800 soundproof glass dress like a lift operator from the nineteen fifties, 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.400 and he's adjusting his desk chair up and down. I mean, 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:46.680 it's really impressive. He's actually hinted that he was looking 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:48.680 forward to this and he has really lived up to 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.480 the challenge here. That's our good pal and producer. Loll lull. 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:55.680 You are looking good. So Mango, what is our first 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.119 stop on this elevator tour? So actually, before we kick off, 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:00.800 I've got a little bit of house key thing to 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:03.760 tie up. In our last episode on Nine Comic Book Heroes, 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:07.240 we talked about this terrible character, the Red Bee, and 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:11.320 his secret weapon, this ridiculous train being named Michael who 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:13.280 you know, if you'll remember, he'd keep him in his 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:16.200 belt then unleash him on villains. But one of our 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.360 listeners on Twitter, Charles Poor, pointed out that male bees 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:23.400 don't sting. That's a very good point. Yeah, yeah, it 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:28.080 only makes Michael seem more useless. It's true. That just 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:30.880 makes it that much better though. So thank you so much, Charles. 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:32.760 If you d m me your address, I'll send you 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:34.600 a small package of honey as a thank you. But 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.040 back to elevators, and I want to go back to 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.640 a time when elevators were a little more dangerous. Yeah, so, 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:43.400 I know modern elevators started to take shape. I guess 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:45.520 it was, you know, as early as the eighteen fifties. 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:48.960 But were they around long before that? Like when exactly 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:51.720 was the first elevator made. So it kind of depends 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:53.880 on your definition. But if you take just the basic 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.960 concept of an elevator, like a machine that can lift 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:59.720 things vertically, then you're probably talking about a few thousand 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:03.119 years ago. For instance, it's possible that the Egyptians used 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:07.120 vertical lifts to build their pyramids, but that's still speculation. 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.480 Like the first recorded use of vertical lift that comes 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:12.880 from the third century b C. And this is when 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:15.920 the mathematician our communities built a platform that could be 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:19.120 hoisted up and down using ropes and pulleys. Now, these 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:22.440 early lifts obviously didn't run on electricity. Instead, they were 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:26.200 powered by people, animals, in some cases even water. They 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.040 also weren't used as people movers. Instead, the hoists were 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:32.240 mostly used to lift building materials or water jugs. And 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:34.799 it wasn't until a few centuries later that primitive elevators 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.719 were finally used to transport living creatures. This was in 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:41.520 the first century CE, when Roman gladiators and wild animals 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:43.640 would ride the lifts from the lower levels up to 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:45.720 the floor of the colisseum. Right, So even then, most 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:48.960 people probably wouldn't have trusted their lives to an elevator, 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:51.280 I would assume at least at that point. And they 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:54.640 were considered safe enough though for enslaved combatants and lions 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:58.200 or whatever. But the average citizen would have probably chosen 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:00.919 the stairs still, definitely, and and there was just still 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:03.360 too much room for error when you had, you know, 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:06.640 people or donkeys pulling the ropes. People didn't really start 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:10.040 using elevators by choice until more reliable systems were developed. 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:13.240 For instance, in UH seventeen forty three, King Louis the 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:15.920 fifteenth had one of the earliest passenger elevators installed in 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:18.760 the palace at Versailles. He was a ladies man and 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:21.640 the private elevator was an easy way for his mistress 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:23.960 to visit him in secret, and he referred to it 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:26.440 as a flying chair. Basically, all you have to do 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:28.400 to operate it was to pull a cord connected to 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:31.240 a police system and from their gravity and a series 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.800 of counterweights would do the rest. Pretty clever, I guess, yeah. 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:38.360 And and in the early eighteen hundred, steam actually gets incorporated, 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.160 and this ends up being super helpful because steam powered 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:43.720 lifts were able to move much heavier loads. You're thinking 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.720 about things like cold or lumber and steel um and 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:49.120 suddenly this could all be raised hundreds of feet in 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:52.239 a matter of seconds. This new capacity led to major 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.080 booms and construction and mining and and it's actually a 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:58.960 big part of what made the Industrial revolution so transformative. 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:03.200 But steam powered elevator still had one major flaw. They 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:06.960 were really dangerous, like super dangerous, and and if a 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:10.599 rope snap, the lift would just plummet. And unfortunately, that 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:12.880 happened pretty often all through the first half of the 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.000 nineteenth century, right And it's around that halfway point that 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:19.880 an entrepreneur, an inventor named elisha Otis enters the picture. 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:22.240 We mentioned that name earlier, and he got into the 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:25.520 elevator game in eighteen fifty two while working on a 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:28.400 project for a company that made bed frames. So the 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.560 client needed a way to move heavy manufacturing equipment to 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.640 the second floor of its factory. There was only one problem, though, 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:36.600 and that was that the equipment they were moving was 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.719 so heavy that the lifting cables couldn't bear the weight 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:42.560 for all that long. So there was this constant risk 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:45.159 that the cables were going to snap, and if that happened, 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:47.680 there would be nothing to stop the elevator from plunging 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:51.159 straight to the ground floor. So Otis's solution to the 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:54.920 problem was to develop the world's first safety device for elevators. 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:58.280 It was basically like a brake system that functioned as 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:01.000 a fail safe for the lift. So if the cable 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:03.679 should break, the loss of tension would trigger the release 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:06.360 of these levers on either side of the elevator car, 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:09.200 and then these levers would lock and do these series 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:12.040 of grooves that were along the vertical rails of the elevator, 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:14.960 and that would sort of arrest the fall and and 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.280 lock the car in place. So it's pretty innovative. That's 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:19.000 pretty amazing. So so I just want to make sure 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:21.640 I have this straight. Like, the vertical rails were already 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.400 part of the elevator design, right, Like, they just didn't 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:26.960 have that like locking system built into them until Otis 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:28.840 came along. Yeah, that's right. I mean all of the 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:31.920 elevators of the era were braced on either side by 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:34.640 these vertical rails that helped keep the car steady as 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.080 it was going up or down. And so those rails 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:40.600 were completely smooth, though, so if a cable broke, the 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:43.320 car would just slide right down the rails and free fall, 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:46.800 which would obviously be dangerous and terrifying. And so Otis's 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.760 breakthrough was to carve grooves into the rails and create 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.600 kind of a saw toothed ratchet system that would act 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:57.640 as these brakes. Industrial companies recognized the merits of the 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.880 new breaking system right away, and Otis quickly set to 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:04.600 work on, you know, filing orders for freight elevators. But 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:08.000 the public was still unconvinced. Was understandably because it is, 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:11.280 you know, such a different invention and everything, but most 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:14.840 people viewed elevators as these death traps, and they were 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:18.320 unlikely to be swayed from this opinion by these confusing 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:22.000 diagrams they were singing and all these technical explanations. So 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:24.320 in order to really trust such a system, people would 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:26.840 need to see it for themselves. And so at the 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:30.880 World's Fair in eighteen fifty four, Elisha Otis allowed them 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:34.760 to do just that. So you're saying that, like fair 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:36.960 goers were actually willing to get into these elevators and 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:40.199 test the brake systems. No, still not at this point. 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:42.800 But Otis thought about that, I mean, he anticipated that, 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:45.640 and so he arranged a stunt that would instead put 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:49.240 only one person's life on the line, and that, of course, 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:51.800 was his own. And so here's what happened. That You're 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:55.560 at the Crystal Palace Exposition Hall, and Otis constructed this 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:59.240 fifty foot wooden elevator. Then, with some help from none 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.679 other than P. T. Barnum himself, Otis gathered this crowd 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:06.360 and promised them this death defying stunt unlike any they 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:09.640 had ever seen. So the crowd is, you know, hyped 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:12.920 up and everything. And Otis then dramatically rides the elevator 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:15.600 to the very top, where he then ordered an axe 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:19.439 wielding assistant to cut the rope that held up the elevator. 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:23.520 The onlookers were stunned and sort of braced themselves for 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:27.720 this tragic scene, but thankfully it never came. And that's because, 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:30.320 you know, of course, to their surprise and great relief, 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.320 the platform dropped just a few inches and then came 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:37.000 to a complete stop. The crowd was blown away by this, 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:40.160 but they were also skeptical of how reliable the system 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:42.880 really was. And you know, they thought, maybe Otis just 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:45.960 got insanely lucky, and there was no guarantee that the 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:49.440 brakes would work a second time. So Otis performed the 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:52.920 stunt again and again and again. Every hour of the 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:56.320 day that the fair was open. He performed this stunt, 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:59.560 and in this way, little by little, one crowd at 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.480 a time, him Otis won over the public and convinced 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:05.760 them that elevators were at long last safe to ride. 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:08.560 That is such an amazing stunt, Like, it's such an 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:11.360 amazing pr thing that all you're basically doing is riding 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:17.160 an elevator. Pretty amazing. But you know, I'm guessing this 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:19.599 was a turning point for Otis, Like I read that 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:21.880 the first passenger elevator to use his brake system was 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:25.280 installed in New York in eighteen fifty seven, so it 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:27.440 was still about three years after the fair. But but 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:31.199 then the floodgates really open, and within sixteen years more 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:35.280 than two thousand passenger elevators were operating all across the country. Yeah, 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:37.760 there was definitely a snowball effect to all of this. 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:40.600 And you know, sadly Otis actually didn't live long enough 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:44.440 to see just how widely embraced his invention became. He 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.920 passed away in eighteen sixty one, just a few years 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:51.120 after his first elevator was installed in New York. But 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:54.920 his sons did carry on the family business, along with others, 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:57.200 and and and they worked to make improvements on that 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:02.199 original design, including the switch to hydraulic power and eventually, 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:05.640 of course, to electricity. Now, all of this innovation helps 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:08.000 secure the elevator's place as one of the most highly 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:12.559 traffic transport systems in the world. And that's not an exaggeration. 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:15.480 According to the l A Times, the world's elevators now 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:19.960 move the equivalent of the Earth's population every seventy two hours. 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.200 If you think about that, every three days, over seven 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:26.640 and a half billion people take a ride on an elevator. 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:30.520 That is not something I'd even comprehended. That's pretty remarkable. Yeah, 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.560 it's it's it's really crazy. And it's especially true of 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:37.520 Otis elevators, which are still going strong today. For example, 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:40.280 the elevators in the Eiffel Tower road to selevators, so 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:42.920 are the ones in the Empire, State Building, the White House, 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.640 the Vatican, the Kremlin. I mean, the list goes on 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:47.840 and on, and the company is now one of the 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:51.600 two largest elevator manufacturers in the world. And that's why 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.559 if you step into an elevator today, the chances are 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:57.240 you will find that Otis name inscribed on the walls there, 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.000 which makes a lot more sense than all the elevator 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:03.360 is in the world being nicknamed Otis. But uh I, 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:05.360 I think we should talk some more about the rapid 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:07.560 growth phase that elevators went through near the turn of 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:10.520 the twentieth century. You actually mentioned that there are a 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:14.080 couple thousands spread across the country by the early eighteen seventies, 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:16.960 but the majority of those were still being used in 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:20.760 industrial settings, and and you'd find the safety elevators in 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.680 in coal mines or construction sites, but it was still 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:25.960 pretty rare to see one in an office building or 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:29.440 apartment complex. Yeah, the average person didn't come into contact 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.040 with elevators all that often. And that finally starts to 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.240 change in the eighteen seventies, though, is business owners begin 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.800 adding elevators to their office buildings and and that's really 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:43.120 what launched the invention into its next phase, where you 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:46.680 start to see all the architectural and cultural impacts that 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:49.480 elevators have had. Yeah, I mean, it's wild to think 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:51.800 about how different the cities we know would look if 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:55.520 it weren't for elevators, Like, no skyscrapers, high rise apartments, 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:58.559 like all the buildings would just be a few stories tall. 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:01.320 It's funny when you look back and realized that higher 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:03.959 floors would you know, they used to be the least 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:07.320 desirable spaces in a building. Like today we connect higher 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:10.160 floors with a sense of luxury. They're more private, farther 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:12.520 removed from the noise of the streets, you know, not 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:15.440 to mention those birds eye view of the skyline. But 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:19.120 before elevators made them more accessible, those top floors were 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:22.480 seen as inconvenient like In fact, they were typically set 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.400 aside for either low rent tenants or like the in 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:28.559 house janitor, So how many stairs you had to climb 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.000 to get to your apartment was really kind of a 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:35.079 status signifier, like the fewer obviously the better, exactly, and 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:37.160 and and so when elevators came along, not only did 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:40.520 those higher floors get much more appealing and much more valuable, 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:44.040 they also got much higher. So thanks to the advent 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:47.400 of steel frame construction, and of course thanks to elevators, 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:50.920 buildings could suddenly be built much taller than before. This 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:53.600 basically meant that anyone who owned a building no longer 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.400 need to fight for new land to develop on, like 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:59.959 that's something that's always in short supply and cities. Instead 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:04.120 they can simply build upwards new offices, hotel rooms, retail 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:07.240 space like there's nothing but air above. So in a way, 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:10.280 elevators literally shaped the cities we know today. I actually 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:13.600 found this great quote from this guy named Patrick Karajat, 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.080 and he's the founder of the Elevator Museum in New York. 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:20.280 And according to him quote, if we didn't have elevators, 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:24.400 we would have a megalopolis, one continuous city stretching from 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.920 Philadelphia to Boston, because everything would be five or six 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:30.680 stories tall. It's interesting to think about as this choice 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:35.200 between a sprawling, horizontal city or is more densely clustered, 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:38.040 vertical one. And it reminds me this cool Boston Globe 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:41.600 article that talked about a kind of invisible war between 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.600 elevators and cars that's been going on for the past 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:47.160 century or so. So the ideas that you have these 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:50.720 two new technologies that we're basically pushing us in two 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.880 different directions. On the one side, you had cars, which 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.600 allowed people to travel horizontally, and the other you had elevators, 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:00.840 which of course move people vertically. And city planners had 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:03.760 to choose which of these new technologies they were going 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:06.200 to get behind, which you know, which one they were 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:08.960 going to focus on developing their cities around. And if 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:12.040 you looked up an American city during the last hundred years, 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:15.480 it's pretty obvious you know which one they picked, definitely. 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:17.360 But it's not like cars were left by the wayside 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:19.320 or any thing. Like elevators may have won the battle 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:22.280 to shape cities, but cars are still the you know, 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.640 transportation of choice, and suburbs where the sprawl is is 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:27.560 much less of an issue. Yeah, I guess in the 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:29.600 end it's it's sort of been a draw in that 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:32.080 sense between those two. But all right, so We've seen 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:34.960 how elevators have evolved over the years, and I feel 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:36.640 like we should check out a few things about them 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:39.800 that have actually stayed the same. Before we get to that, 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:55.600 let's take a quick break. You're listening to Part Time 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:59.920 Genius and we're talking about the eccentricities of elevator etiquette. Right, Magoes, 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:03.480 we talked about the elevator's effect on our architecture and 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:07.280 daily routines. Now let's talk about how elevators affected the 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:09.640 people who rode them, Because when you think about it, 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:13.640 passenger elevators really created a new kind of social situation, 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:17.840 like one that's strangely intimate yet impersonal at the same time. 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:19.680 It's always a little bit weird to be in an 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:22.000 elevator full of people, or even more weird to be 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:25.360 with one person. But you know, this new dynamic raised 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:29.040 all kinds of questions about what was proper behavior when 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:32.680 riding an elevator. The one hot debate, for example, was 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:35.600 whether a man should remove his hat while riding in 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:37.920 an elevator with a woman. You know, I'm sure you 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:40.440 think about this all the time and really worried about, like, 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:42.400 should he take his hat off as he would in 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:44.640 a restaurant or leave it on as he would, you know, 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:46.240 on a train or a bus. I mean, it's a 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.280 lot to think about. I don't think I even realize 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:50.320 you're supposed to leave your hat on on a bus, 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:54.680 but yeah, leave it on. But it's interesting because restaurants 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.520 and busses are both examples of public spaces, right, So 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:00.240 for elevators, it was really more about whether they were 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:03.480 a mode of transportation or just another room in the building, 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:06.320 albeit a moving room. So it's kind of a tough 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:10.040 call because both descriptions are technically a fit for that. Yeah, 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.080 it's true, and I think that was really what through people, 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:16.840 Like the elevator was a mode of transportation inside a building, 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.200 So which set of rules do you follow now? Unlike 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.679 riding a bus, riding an elevator brought unclear expectations for 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:27.879 social interaction, Like even if you don't know the other passengers, 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:30.480 you know that they live or work in the same 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:32.520 building as you, and so there's this sense that you 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.520 should at least acknowledge that in some way, whether by 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:39.400 nodding or smiling or making small talk or whatever. Right, 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:41.280 But we never want to be the person to make 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:43.080 that call, right, like everyone wants to wait for the 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:45.240 other person to make the first move in those situations, 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.119 so it always creates this I don't know, like anxiety 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:50.399 or tension or something. No, I don't know. I usually 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:52.000 just go ahead and get in and get everybody a 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:55.760 hub and just get that out of the way exactly. 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:58.280 And it feels like, now, more than a hundred and 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:01.680 fifty years after their invention, we still haven't gotten over 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:05.280 those feelings of of discomfort. It's like, despite all the 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:08.840 advances in elevator design, the one thing we can't seem 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:12.119 to resolve is is this inherent awkwardness of taking this 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:16.200 short ride with other strangers. So I am curious if 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:18.840 you know what causes that, like, like what makes it 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.520 feel so awkward? Yeah, I was definitely curious about this. 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:23.159 This was actually one of the first things we were 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:25.680 looking into this week, and it turns out there are 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:29.160 a few reasons. So one deals with something that international 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:32.080 tourists here a lot, which is that we Americans love 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:35.640 our personal space. So typically we like to keep at 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:39.000 least in arm's length of distance between us and other people, 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:41.680 and the elevator is one of the rare places where 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:44.359 that's not always possible, and so that's you know, what 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:47.560 brings on some of that awkwardness. Now, the other thing 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:49.919 that was is a bit more universal, and that's that 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:52.360 most of us are at least a little bit anxious 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:56.720 of being trapped in a steel box, which may sound obvious, 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:59.040 and and not only that you're dangling from the roof 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:02.320 by by this cable. And that's despite the fact that 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:05.959 elevators are actually super safe. In fact, they are one 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:09.959 of the safest ways to travel period. So for example, 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:13.800 about people die taking the stairs each year, which is 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:17.560 just a really bizarre fact. But according to Consumer Watch, 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:21.240 there are only about twenty seven elevator related deaths per 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:24.320 year worldwide. Not gonna be honest, I wouldn't even know 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.160 it was it was that much. And considering that elevators 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:30.800 make roughly eighteen billion trips each year according to the 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.320 l A Times, that works out to an exceptionally low 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:39.040 fatality rate. It's about a point zero zero zero zero 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:43.159 zero zero one five per trip. So you know, the 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:46.119 awkwardness you feel in an elevator is very real, but 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:50.240 the sense of danger not so much. Well, I mean 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:52.440 that definitely tracts with what I learned this week about 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:55.600 the origin of elevator music. So I I always assumed 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:57.800 that the music was there to calm people's nerves and 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:01.200 make them less worried about going, you know, something going wrong. 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:04.600 But according to elevator historians, of which there are actually 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.600 a great many, I found out this week elevator music 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:10.840 was really invented to help alleviate boredom and to fill 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:13.919 that awkward silence that comes from riding a lift with strangers. 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:16.960 I do kind of like the awkward silence. Was just assume, like, 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:19.639 of course people will choose that over small talk with 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:22.119 a stranger, you know, I know, and I guess building 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:24.120 owners were like, we know, you aren't going to talk 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:25.920 to each other. So here's some music to fill that 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:28.320 void where where I guess the human interaction is supposed 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:30.480 to go. It's too bad it doesn't doesn't really work. 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:34.000 I mean reality, there is no escaping the awkward, or 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:36.200 at least not until you hit the closed door button 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:38.240 really quickly when you see a stranger coming, just to 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:41.600 avoid the whole situation entirely. So here's the thing I 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:44.040 learned about that. You know, it turns out that closing 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:47.040 the elevator door on a stranger doesn't really work, and 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:49.879 that's because the closed door button and most American elevators 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:53.200 is ineffective. It actually, I guess, sort of makes sense. 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:56.159 I always suspected that was the case. But is this 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:58.800