Speaker 1: Pushkin. When I told the editor of this show that
Speaker 1: I was thinking of doing an episode about elevators, she said, why,
Speaker 1: which fair question. It's a little bit different than what
Speaker 1: we usually do on the show. But the elevator is
Speaker 1: this little box that's full of interesting ideas about technology
Speaker 1: and design and innovation and human behavior. The elevator made
Speaker 1: the modern city possible. No elevators, no skyscrapers, and today
Speaker 1: people are working on entirely new kinds of elevators that
Speaker 1: can go higher and faster than ever, and that can
Speaker 1: also not only go up and down, but can also
Speaker 1: go sideways. I'm Jacob Goldstein, and this is what's your problem.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Lee Gray. He's a professor of
Speaker 1: architectural history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte,
Speaker 1: and as far as we can tell, he's the world's
Speaker 1: leading historian of the elevator. I started the conversation with
Speaker 1: Lee in the same place that people always start the
Speaker 1: story of the modern elevator. New York City, eighteen fifty three,
Speaker 1: when an engineer and inventor named Elijah Otis stood on
Speaker 1: an open elevator platform in front of a crowd. A
Speaker 1: rope hoisted the elevator high up into the air, so
Speaker 1: Otis was sort of dangling there in front of the crowd.
Speaker 1: And then a guy Otis had hired took an axe
Speaker 1: and cut the rope that held the elevator up. The
Speaker 1: elevator fell a couple feet and then it stopped. The
Speaker 1: safety break that Otis had invented worked perfectly. He called
Speaker 1: out all safe, and the crowd, one imagines went wild.
Speaker 1: Lee kind of sighed frankly when I brought this story up,
Speaker 1: and he told me, yes, that story is true as
Speaker 1: far as it goes, but it's incomplete, and it's incomplete
Speaker 1: in the way that stories about lone inventors and Eureka
Speaker 1: moments are almost always incomplete.
Speaker 2: A critical part of the story that's often omitted is
Speaker 2: this was designed for a freight elevator. When he demonstrates
Speaker 2: his safety, there is no such thing as a passenger
Speaker 2: elevator as we know it today. That hasn't been imagined yet.
Speaker 2: It was literally an open platform. There was no car,
Speaker 2: there were no walls, no, there was no enclosure on it.
Speaker 2: So it was it was yes, very clever and much
Speaker 2: needed safety device, but for a much different problem than
Speaker 2: that of a passenger elevator. The safety was designed that
Speaker 2: it was held in place by a spring, and the
Speaker 2: weight of the platform held the spring in place when
Speaker 2: it was attached to the hoisting rope. When the hoisting
Speaker 2: rope broke, the spring then pushed down and then from
Speaker 2: the car pushed out two iron bars that engaged the
Speaker 2: teeth of the guide rails. And the minute they hit
Speaker 2: the teeth, the platform stopped moving.
Speaker 1: So it's essentially an emergency brake that designed to activate
Speaker 1: if the rope should break.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's that's a that's a very good analogy.
Speaker 1: So okay, Elijah Otis invented this safety break for the
Speaker 1: industrial elevator and that is in fact the same Otis
Speaker 1: who is tied to the Otis Elevator company today. You
Speaker 1: know we should mention, but now in our story we
Speaker 1: need someone to come along and invent the passenger elevator,
Speaker 1: this thing we know as the elevator. Tell me about
Speaker 1: that part.
Speaker 2: The first person that I am aware of to conceptualize
Speaker 2: and articulate the modern passenger elevator. This is where it
Speaker 2: gets complicated because for his first name was Otis, last
Speaker 2: name Tuffts.
Speaker 1: That's so complicated we can call him Tufts, and the
Speaker 1: other guy otis yeah right.
Speaker 2: So the Boston Boston engineer Tuffts patents in eighteen fifty
Speaker 2: nine an elevator, an elevator specifically designed for passengers, with
Speaker 2: an enclosed car to protect the passengers, automatically operating doors
Speaker 2: not quite sure how well they worked, and the idea
Speaker 2: of an operator there to run the elevator for the passengers.
Speaker 2: But it was also a very specific conception of an
Speaker 2: elevator car because it was designed for use in the
Speaker 2: Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York, which was one of
Speaker 2: these grand urban hotels. So the elevator car included benches
Speaker 2: for the passengers they could sit down and relax before
Speaker 2: the car moved, and so Tufts very clearly articulated for
Speaker 2: the first time, here are all the components of a
Speaker 2: passenger elevator. What he also did was proposed a technological
Speaker 2: solution that really didn't make much sense because it was
Speaker 2: so expensive. Because he said, well, you know, the problem
Speaker 2: with elevators is the cable's going to break and the
Speaker 2: elevator car will fall down. So we got rid of
Speaker 2: the cable. And what he proposed and in fact did
Speaker 2: in the Fifth Avenue hotel Is. He constructed this massive
Speaker 2: vertical screw for lack of a better definition, that ran
Speaker 2: from the basement to the top of the building. The
Speaker 2: elevator cars attached to the screw like a nut on
Speaker 2: a bolt. The screw turns, the elevator car rises, and
Speaker 2: it goes up and goes down very very slowly. It
Speaker 2: was insanely complicated from a technological solution that made no sense.
Speaker 2: Only two of these were ever built. So this is
Speaker 2: an example of he got all of what we won
Speaker 2: in a passenger elevator in terms of its concept. He
Speaker 2: just got the technology really really wrong. But he established
Speaker 2: the paradigm that others Otis among them picked up and said, ah, okay,
Speaker 2: now we know what you know. The difference between a
Speaker 2: freight elevator and a passenger elevator, a lot of it
Speaker 2: is the car to keep passengers safe.
Speaker 1: So we want Toff's box toughs room that goes up
Speaker 1: and down, and we want Otis's safety mechanism basically like
Speaker 1: it seems like the combination of those two is what
Speaker 1: gives us in the middle of the eighteen hundreds, the
Speaker 1: passenger elevator that is not so different as we know it.
Speaker 2: Today, right, Yes, in terms of many many of its
Speaker 2: fundamental features and the concern for safety that otis expressed
Speaker 2: with this freight elevator. That is one constant that the
Speaker 2: elevator industry has never lost sight of and is always
Speaker 2: at the forefront of everything they do.
Speaker 1: So we have this elevator that is Tough's box plus
Speaker 1: Otis's safety device basically, right. And so you have this
Speaker 1: moment in the eighteen hundreds when elevators and skyscrapers are
Speaker 1: kind of emerging into the world together, right, And this
Speaker 1: is a really elegant interesting story. So can you just
Speaker 1: talk about the relationship between the elevator as this innovation
Speaker 1: and the skyscraper as this related innovation. How do they
Speaker 1: sort of co evolve?
Speaker 2: So the very quickly leading into that when throughout throughout
Speaker 2: the eighteen sixties we only find passenger elevators in large
Speaker 2: German hotels or very posh department stores. It's a luxury item,
Speaker 2: not predicated on speed, predicated on I enter, I have
Speaker 2: a seat on a cushioned seat. There's mirrors in the car,
Speaker 2: the gash chandeliers. This is elegant little room that takes
Speaker 2: me very slowly to my destination because it's about luxury,
Speaker 2: it's not about speed.
Speaker 1: Is it also sort of about technology? Is it about
Speaker 1: like I am rich and I'm experiencing the modern marvels
Speaker 1: of my age.
Speaker 2: In to us, that's that's a very good point. In
Speaker 2: the urban large urban hotel, they were known for having
Speaker 2: all of the latest technological amenities. So in that sense, yes,
Speaker 2: you know, this is this is this this powerful new technology.
Speaker 2: But the critical thing I think is is it's not
Speaker 2: about speed, It's about luxury. When it makes the jump
Speaker 2: into the first tall office buildings in the eighteen seventies,
Speaker 2: beginning in eighteen seventy, In fact, that's when the idea
Speaker 2: of speed suddenly gets introduced because every business person recognizes, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't want to, you know, go into
Speaker 2: a seven story office building and go in and have
Speaker 2: a seat and sit down, and it takes me forever
Speaker 2: to get upstairs when I could walk up the stairs
Speaker 2: more quickly. The whole point of this technology is to
Speaker 2: move me more quickly. And so as the skyscraper moves
Speaker 2: through the nineteenth century, one way to describe it is,
Speaker 2: I mean we always hear the passenger elevator makes the
Speaker 2: skyscraper possible. True. Also, the desire to have a skyscraper
Speaker 2: made the modern elevator possible. I need both because I
Speaker 2: look at the first elevators steam powered, they could go
Speaker 2: seven eight floors without too much trouble, and there's a
Speaker 2: desire to build taller buildings. Then hydraulic elevators come into
Speaker 2: play of specific designs that can easily do ten, fifteen,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five stories. Then we get to the close
Speaker 2: of the nineteenth century, I want to go higher. Still,
Speaker 2: I need a different technology than the electric traction elevator
Speaker 2: is developed. So in each of those phases, it's a
Speaker 2: question of, well, did the elevator technology drive the height
Speaker 2: or did the desire to go taller drive the technology.
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like the first enabling idea you
Speaker 1: need is just the idea of an elevator, right Like,
Speaker 1: until you have the idea of an elevator, nobody's going
Speaker 1: to say, can you get me a better elevator? Right
Speaker 1: that people are just going to assume that the height
Speaker 1: of a building is constrained by the number of flights
Speaker 1: of steps people will walk.
Speaker 2: Up right right, true, And that's that's and that's a
Speaker 2: very good point. Yes. Once the idea is there, then
Speaker 2: it's it's really interesting how how it is considered.
Speaker 1: Then it's like, well, surely if you could take me
Speaker 1: up seven floors, you could take me up another seven
Speaker 1: floors and another seven and so what like by say
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred, by the early nineteen hundreds, How tall are buildings?
Speaker 2: Oh? In New York? That's a good question.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Woolworth Building is the one I always
Speaker 1: think of. I was looking at that one up. I
Speaker 1: think it's on the order of sixty stories, like very
Speaker 1: tall even today, not the tallest, but like you look
Speaker 1: at that building today and you're not like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: a tiny little building. Like that's a big building. Nobody's
Speaker 1: going to walk up all those steps, and it does
Speaker 1: seem it does seem like I understand that with your knowledge,
Speaker 1: you don't it as this one kind of step function change.
Speaker 1: There was like a really slow elevator that was like
Speaker 1: a luxury box to be fancy and take you up
Speaker 1: six stories, and then there was a better one that
Speaker 1: could do twenty. But in a relatively short period of
Speaker 1: time we go from I don't know how tall were
Speaker 1: tall buildings before elevator six stories seven.
Speaker 2: Stories five is five to maybe six, and of course
Speaker 2: the top floor was the cheapest to rent.
Speaker 1: Right, right, there's also that, right because you have to
Speaker 1: slap up all the steps, and so if you can
Speaker 1: afford it, you live on the ground, and that's going
Speaker 1: to get inverted, which is fun. Right, if you're rich,
Speaker 1: you get to live up top. But there is this,
Speaker 1: at least at our distance, this change. Right, you go
Speaker 1: from eighteen fifty no elevator, a tall building is six stories.
Speaker 1: By the early nineteen hundreds, elevators are quite good and safe,
Speaker 1: and you've gone up in the height of buildings by
Speaker 1: ten x. Right, you've gone up to buildings of something
Speaker 1: like sixty stories, and you have what looks like a
Speaker 1: modern city. Like, yes, it's not glass and steel yet,
Speaker 1: and it's not as tall, but it's the basic idea
Speaker 1: of say Manhattan, to pick one is in place. And
Speaker 1: we did not have another step function of that magnitude. Right,
Speaker 1: We went from six to sixty in that fifty ish years.
Speaker 1: We didn't go from sixty to six hundred. We're not
Speaker 1: even close. Right, The tallest buildings in the world now
Speaker 1: are one hundred in some stories. And that's interesting to me.
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like the biggest move was that
Speaker 1: first one. Do you buy it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, I think that's a very good observation, observation,
Speaker 2: And but what that also speaks to is the electric
Speaker 2: traction elevator, perfected in the first couple of decades of
Speaker 2: the twentieth century, remains the dominant elevator type. What everyone
Speaker 2: is waiting on is a cableless elevator, possibly by maglev
Speaker 2: technology or something very similar. And because right now we're
Speaker 2: limited by the length and actually weight of the steel cables.
Speaker 2: Once we get rid of the cables and we can
Speaker 2: do it with the same speed and efficiency of the
Speaker 2: current traction elevator, that's the next jump, where suddenly one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty two hundred stories, if we wanted to,
Speaker 2: would be possible.
Speaker 1: I want to talk more about that, but there's a
Speaker 1: few things I want to discuss first. So there are
Speaker 1: a few things that have happened obviously in elevators in
Speaker 1: the last one hundred years. One of them that is
Speaker 1: interesting to me is the advent of what today we
Speaker 1: might call the driverless car elevator, the driverless elevator car.
Speaker 1: Let's say, right in this era, when we've keep feeling like,
Speaker 1: maybe we're about to get to driverless cars, but everybody's
Speaker 1: really nervous about it. There is this interesting moment when
Speaker 1: that happens with elevators. Tell me about the advent of
Speaker 1: the driverless elevator car.
Speaker 2: Okay, and that is a critical pivot point that occurs
Speaker 2: in the nineteen fifties. So prior to the what the
Speaker 2: industry called the operator less elevator or driverless elevator, if
Speaker 2: you will, all elevators had operators, even ones with push
Speaker 2: buttons that you know, you or I could have walked
Speaker 2: in and pushed a button. The reason the operator remains
Speaker 2: in the car until the nineteen fifties is it has
Speaker 2: to do with traffic control. So in a large building,
Speaker 2: let's say the building has twenty elevators, it's a forty
Speaker 2: story building, and ten elevators, you know, serve half the
Speaker 2: floor's tens or the other half. Elevator traffic control was
Speaker 2: conducted and organized by an individual called a starter. He
Speaker 2: was charged with organizing the elevator operators and at least
Speaker 2: and at the beginning of the day and throughout the
Speaker 2: day as needed, giving them a sign, either a literal
Speaker 2: sign by pointing at them or by pushing a button
Speaker 2: that would activate a light in their car, of controlling
Speaker 2: elevator traffic in the building so that it met the
Speaker 2: needs of the building.
Speaker 1: We get everybody up like a like a taxi dispatcher.
Speaker 2: That's that's a that's a very good analogy. And we're
Speaker 2: dependent on the human brain to do that until we
Speaker 2: get to the early nineteen fifties when we get the
Speaker 2: first automated systems that will manage that you can, for
Speaker 2: lack of a better word, program into preset programs so
Speaker 2: that the elevators automatically do what we want them to do.
Speaker 2: And as soon as I can do that reliably, reliably,
Speaker 2: I don't need the operator anymore, and therefore I can
Speaker 2: get rid of them because I've literally automated the movement
Speaker 2: of elevators.
Speaker 1: Well, so this is the like real estate point of view,
Speaker 1: in the elevator point of view, what is the elevator
Speaker 1: rider the civilian point of view on this shift toward
Speaker 1: automated elevators, like, were people scared? Were they not scared?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 2: Lever House in New York City, one of the first
Speaker 2: all glass skyscrapers, was one of the first buildings to
Speaker 2: have fully automated elevators, no operators. There are documented stories
Speaker 2: of when the building opened, everybody was really excited this
Speaker 2: new modern building, of users going in the building, stepping
Speaker 2: into the elevator car and stepping right back out, saying,
Speaker 2: where's the guy who's supposed to run this? Because they
Speaker 2: were they were clearly disconcerted that so there's no one here.
Speaker 2: I am on my own, and I mean people got
Speaker 2: over that pretty quickly, but there was a moment where
Speaker 2: it's like, well, wait a minute.
Speaker 3: I I pushed the button really all by myself, huh,
Speaker 3: And I mean it didn't take long, but there was
Speaker 3: a there was a learning curve because it was such
Speaker 3: an expected part of the experience.
Speaker 2: There's this uniformed person there who all I have to
Speaker 2: do is say five please, and they take care of
Speaker 2: it for me.
Speaker 1: Are there any lessons from that transition to driverless elevator
Speaker 1: cars that might be useful for the transition to driverless cars,
Speaker 1: Like did they change the user interface at all? Did
Speaker 1: they add any buttons to try and make people feel better?
Speaker 2: I am not aware of any of any change in buttons,
Speaker 2: but you did make me think of something that I
Speaker 2: haven't thought of before. When I've got an operator in
Speaker 2: there running the car. Also, the presence of the operator
Speaker 2: I think produced a very specific social dynamic because there's
Speaker 2: someone in charge in the car. So I go in.
Speaker 2: When there's no one in charge, it is literally a
Speaker 2: group of strangers entering a car, sort of fending for themselves.
Speaker 2: And that social dynamic remains one of the reasons many
Speaker 2: people don't like elevators because they're awkward, they're weird little rooms.
Speaker 2: Then I'm standing way too close to somebody.
Speaker 1: Still to come on the show. Elevators that go sideways,
Speaker 1: elevators that go to space, and escalators. So here's a question.
Speaker 1: Do people want to build taller buildings now? And they're
Speaker 1: just constrained by elevators.
Speaker 2: So if I wanted to, I could build two hundred
Speaker 2: story building with current technology, and I would take existing
Speaker 2: technology and I could go, you know, maybe one hundred
Speaker 2: floors up, get off at a sky lobby, and then
Speaker 2: go another one hundred floors up. So if I wanted
Speaker 2: to stack two hundred story buildings on top of each other,
Speaker 2: I could.
Speaker 1: I mean, in fact, the World Trade Center, the original
Speaker 1: World Trade Center, which was not that all, used that technology, right,
Speaker 1: it was essentially from an elevator point of view, two
Speaker 1: elevators stacked on top of each other to get to
Speaker 1: the top of those buildings, right.
Speaker 2: Right, So in theory, yes, yes, I could do that,
Speaker 2: and there are some people speculating on you know, that
Speaker 2: eventually that's the future of urban environments, massive buildings and
Speaker 2: everybody living in large cities. I'm not aware of any
Speaker 2: anyone who's put forward a serious explanation of why we
Speaker 2: would need to do that.
Speaker 1: Well, the interesting like if we go back to the
Speaker 1: sort of first chapter that you know, whatever eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: to nineteen twenty period call it, which is really an
Speaker 1: interesting period. You know, there's a pretty strong argument that
Speaker 1: the technological changes of that period were much greater than
Speaker 1: the technological changes of the seventy years we've just lived through.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You go from no running water for almost everybody, electricity,
Speaker 1: no cars, no planes, no skyscrapers like two. You know,
Speaker 1: Manhattan in nineteen twenty looks eminently recognizable in a way
Speaker 1: that Manhattan of eighteen fifty would not. So I don't
Speaker 1: think it would have been obvious to anyone in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty that Manhattan needed sixty story buildings. And yet seventy
Speaker 1: years later, we had them like, what's the why did
Speaker 1: we hit the top? If we hit the top, what happened?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean in the Woolworth building is a good example.
Speaker 2: I think it was it was its size because the client, Woolworth,
Speaker 2: wanted that building to be that big. This is about me,
Speaker 2: This is about a symbol of my commercial success, this
Speaker 2: is about my ego. And it's really important to remember
Speaker 2: from from an urban development point of view, at this
Speaker 2: when the passenger elevators introduced in the Nine States, it's
Speaker 2: introduced into Europe at exactly the same moment, but all
Speaker 2: major European cities. London's a good example. Paris certainly had
Speaker 2: very specific height restrictions. You couldn't build a skyscraper in
Speaker 2: those cities if you wanted to, because it was constrained
Speaker 2: by code, and also there was no apparent desire to
Speaker 2: do so. It was only the United States that we
Speaker 2: you know, someone said, well, I really want to build
Speaker 2: this tall building because I want to, you know, it's
Speaker 2: the power of my company. I want to make lots
Speaker 2: of money in rent space. Whatever that we said, okay,
Speaker 2: And not that there weren't some I mean, obviously there
Speaker 2: were gradually development of building codes. But it was a
Speaker 2: lot about the ego of the individual client and the
Speaker 2: fact of the unrestrained nature of American urban environments. That
Speaker 2: and that also then, and it is still true.
Speaker 1: It's still true. But buildings aren't getting bigger so much, right, Like, yes,
Speaker 1: you get a building that's a little taller, but we
Speaker 1: have not done another ten x. And yet people still
Speaker 1: have very large egos and a wish to, you know,
Speaker 1: show the world their endowment in the form of the
Speaker 1: biggest building in the world. But yet it's not happening
Speaker 1: so much anymore. Is it a technological thing?
Speaker 2: It is an interesting point. I mean, you know, we
Speaker 2: are sort of maxed out right now in terms of height. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Why is that is the fact that we're maxed out
Speaker 1: on height a product of elevator technology? Are we waiting
Speaker 1: for some new elevator technology that will allow us to
Speaker 1: get buildings that are profoundly bigger?
Speaker 2: Right or wrong? That's the accepted position of the industry
Speaker 2: right now. That yes, with our current technology. Whereas where's
Speaker 2: high as we're going to go? What I don't know,
Speaker 2: but suspect from a real estate perspective is if I
Speaker 2: had two one hundred story buildings stacked on top of
Speaker 2: one another. Would people be willing to r you know,
Speaker 2: spend the time to get up to the two guys? Right?
Speaker 2: Am I willing to take that kind of time and.
Speaker 1: Time because they have to take two elevators? It's like, right,
Speaker 1: you gotta transfer trains or something.
Speaker 2: To And if I had a building that size, would
Speaker 2: it be one where? And we've had mixed use skyscrapers
Speaker 2: in the past. If I had a building that size,
Speaker 2: you know, is it one that you know? I live
Speaker 2: on you know, one hundred and fifty and I work
Speaker 2: on seventy five.
Speaker 1: And you shop on three, and you go to the
Speaker 1: gym on six, and I and I never leave, you
Speaker 1: never leave. Dystopian, but fun to think about. So what,
Speaker 1: so what is the next leap in elevator technology? What
Speaker 1: are people trying to solve? What's the frontier?
Speaker 2: So the next leap is going to be elevators with
Speaker 2: no cables and TK Elevator has developed a system that
Speaker 2: they call multi which uses maglev type technology.
Speaker 1: Maglev like magnets like high speed trains. Yes, so it's
Speaker 1: floating basically in a shaft.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a similar, similar kind of technology. And they have
Speaker 2: developed a prototype where you would have multiple shafts in
Speaker 2: a building, multiple cars running up and down in the
Speaker 2: same shaft, but also horizontal shafts connecting vertical shafts, so
Speaker 2: I could go up thirty floors, maybe over two hundred feet,
Speaker 2: and then up another thirty floors and it's.
Speaker 1: Like the Willy Wonka elevator.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, that's yes, the Willy Wonka elevator. And
Speaker 2: so that system has been sort of proof of concept
Speaker 2: in a test tower in Germany. It has yet to
Speaker 2: be placed in a building to really demonstrate its viability.
Speaker 2: You can see you two videos of it in the
Speaker 2: test tower. It's really complicated technologically. My question is it's
Speaker 2: it's almost something like you know, an answer in in
Speaker 2: in search of a question. It's like, so, you know,
Speaker 2: I can understand maybe why we need multiple cars in
Speaker 2: a single shaft. I'm not quite sure why we need
Speaker 2: to move horizontally through a building. And it is interesting
Speaker 2: to me that, at least as far as I know,
Speaker 2: thus far, there haven't been any takers. No one has
Speaker 2: said because it would be an enormous investment in a
Speaker 2: building to install a system like that, just just to
Speaker 2: demonstrate that, yes, this is this is is the is
Speaker 2: the new way, but that there's been a lot of
Speaker 2: research and a lot of work. And when it's perfected
Speaker 2: and and there are no cables, then you know in
Speaker 2: theory that two hundreds story building gets much easier. That
Speaker 2: there's still the question of why and you know why
Speaker 2: we would need it?
Speaker 1: What about a space elevator?
Speaker 2: So the space elevator is is an amazing idea and
Speaker 2: very clever, and it's it's predicated on placing as as
Speaker 2: as you may know, placing some kind of platform in
Speaker 2: geosynchronous orbit so it stays stays above the same point
Speaker 2: on the Earth, and then using guess nanocarbon fibers, if
Speaker 2: we can ever perfect how to produce that many connecting
Speaker 2: those two points, and then I can run an elevator
Speaker 2: from the Earth to this satellite platform geosynchronous orbit, probably
Speaker 2: a solar powered elevator, and suddenly I can start carrying
Speaker 2: materials up to space very easily and quickly. And that's
Speaker 2: how I'm going to build the next generation of of
Speaker 2: of rockets and and vehicles that will you know, and
Speaker 2: our travel.
Speaker 1: And presumably if you could get it built, it would
Speaker 1: be cheaper, although obviously rockets have gotten much cheaper, cheaper
Speaker 1: than a rocket, and it's like a real idea, right,
Speaker 1: I know, nobody is actually building it, but like my
Speaker 1: understanding of the physics, well, I don't really understand the physics,
Speaker 1: but my understanding of what people who understand the physics
Speaker 1: say is like, yeah, it's pick a work.
Speaker 2: It's a real idea. It's it's a very serious idea.
Speaker 2: Lots of people have spent a lot of time thinking
Speaker 2: about it and questions about if there's a delay. It's
Speaker 2: it's the nanocarbon fiber issue is how do we develop
Speaker 2: something that can link something in geosynchronous orbit to a
Speaker 2: place on Earth, and then where do we put it
Speaker 2: because obviously we don't want anything flying into the cable.
Speaker 1: We haven't even talked about your escalator work. What's happening
Speaker 1: with escalators.
Speaker 2: So one of the projects I'm working on is a
Speaker 2: book on the history of the escalator, and it is
Speaker 2: obviously related to the elevators, but it's a very different
Speaker 2: piece of technology because it's you know, it's much more visible.
Speaker 2: We sort of even though people don't really quite know
Speaker 2: how it works, it's magical in a sense that and
Speaker 2: here I think I would encourage everyone to remember about
Speaker 2: as the first time as a child they saw an
Speaker 2: escalator because it's like, oh my god, the stairs are
Speaker 2: moving in a.
Speaker 1: Way sort of visually, it's cooler than an elevator, right,
Speaker 1: Like the elevator does more work. If I could only
Speaker 1: have one in the world, I'd choose the elevator. But
Speaker 1: especially when the stairs appear and disappear, that's actually the
Speaker 1: incredible part. That's the genius.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's they're they're they're very cool. Now, I
Speaker 2: will say they are much more dangerous than elevators. Mean, well,
Speaker 2: falling on an escalator or you know, they're really well designed.
Speaker 2: But they're because they because of of how we have
Speaker 2: to enter an ex I mean it requires a little
Speaker 2: bit of coordination.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't fall down an elevator the way you
Speaker 1: can fall down an escalator. Right, Is there is there
Speaker 1: a good origin story of the escalator? Is there a moment?
Speaker 1: Is there some genius? It's like we can squish the
Speaker 1: steps and then make them big again.
Speaker 2: So, in a very odd so coincidence, the very first
Speaker 2: patent for the idea of moving steps was patented on
Speaker 2: exactly the same day that otis Tuff's patented his idea
Speaker 2: or concept of the passenger elevator. Yes, and and and
Speaker 2: this design was never built, but it was somebody saying, well,
Speaker 2: how about this.
Speaker 1: The fact that both of them were patented on the
Speaker 1: same day, that must tell us something about that moment,
Speaker 1: Like I insist that it's not just a coincidence. What
Speaker 1: like what do you think it tells us about what
Speaker 1: was going on? Was it eighteen fifties at that moment?
Speaker 2: Yeah, eighteen fifty nine. That's a that's a really wonderful question.
Speaker 2: And I don't I would really have to think about.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's it's this interesting pivot point. You know,
Speaker 2: we're right on the verge of a lot of technologies
Speaker 2: really taking off, you know, whether it's railroad or other
Speaker 2: or others.
Speaker 1: I'm going to take a stab at it. I have
Speaker 1: the advantage of ignorance. It's a moment when so the
Speaker 1: industrial revolution has been going on for call it one
Speaker 1: hundred years at that point, right, But it has been
Speaker 1: industrial right in the way you were talking about the elevator.
Speaker 1: It has been about factories and warehouses and this very
Speaker 1: industrial setting. And these are both inventions that are taking
Speaker 1: the the in sites, the innovations of the industrial evolution
Speaker 1: and bringing them to the lives of ordinary people. And
Speaker 1: maybe this is a moment when that is starting to happen.
Speaker 1: You're getting these grand hotels you are describing that are
Speaker 1: bringing technology, You're getting the kind of you know, ladies Paradise,
Speaker 1: early department stores, and industrialization is becoming sort of domesticated,
Speaker 1: and both the passenger elevator and the escalator maybe are
Speaker 1: manifestations of that.
Speaker 2: I think that's a very plausible, very reasonable.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll take plausible. I will take plausible. We'll be
Speaker 1: back in a minute with the lightning round. Okay, let's finish.
Speaker 1: Let's finish with the lightning round. Favorite elevator reference in a.
Speaker 2: Song, Uh, probably Aerosmith Love and.
Speaker 1: Uh great. Favorite elevator in a movie.
Speaker 2: Actually everybody forgets about it, but it's in the movie Speed.
Speaker 1: Huh. Speed's about a bus? Am I thinking about the
Speaker 1: right movie?
Speaker 2: Yes, but it's it's in the first third of the
Speaker 2: movie when the elevator gets blown up.
Speaker 1: Why that one?
Speaker 2: Because ironically it is. It's it's the one of the
Speaker 2: few times Hollywood gets it right. The cables are blown
Speaker 2: off the car and you see the safeties, grab and
Speaker 2: stop the car ah and and and it's just sort
Speaker 2: of like, yeah, that's what would happen. Now, I guess
Speaker 2: I should call it. The other one is the Willy
Speaker 2: Wonker elevator, the Johnny Depp one, not the Gene Wilder one.
Speaker 1: I know, I know an elevator is not gonna go
Speaker 1: into free fall. But what is a dangerous thing that
Speaker 1: I should not do on or near an elevator?
Speaker 2: That's a really good question. There are many many safety
Speaker 2: devices in place on elevators. I with all of those
Speaker 2: in place, what I still would probably not suggest is
Speaker 2: if the door is starting to close, don't put your
Speaker 2: don't put your arm in that gap, thinking the door
Speaker 2: will automatically rebound. It should, but I wouldn't do that
Speaker 2: or put your foot in the gap.
Speaker 1: How many articles have you written for Elevator World magazine.
Speaker 2: Over two hundred and fifty?
Speaker 1: Have you ever been stuck in an elevator?
Speaker 2: Almost button? But no, I had an elevator once that
Speaker 2: stopped and I thought, okay, this is my first experience,
Speaker 2: and then it started moving again, So no, I haven't.
Speaker 2: I haven't had that experience.
Speaker 1: Were you kind of disappointed when it started moving again
Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, I mean I feel like if
Speaker 1: you're you, you kind of in control the way. Want
Speaker 1: to be stuck on an elevator once for not too long?
Speaker 2: Well? The advantage and only I know I only know
Speaker 2: this because of what I know is is you know,
Speaker 2: if an elevator stops moving, I'm in the safest place
Speaker 2: I can be in the elevator car. And then I
Speaker 2: just wait for help.
Speaker 1: Have you ever ever walked up a down escalator?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Have you ever walked down an up escalator?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Do you push the door closed button on the elevator sometimes?
Speaker 1: Does it work? I have read that it doesn't work?
Speaker 1: Is that true?
Speaker 2: It works?
Speaker 1: Tell me one thing I don't know about moving sidewalks.
Speaker 2: The first okay, when moving the first, moving sidewalks were
Speaker 2: intended as urban transportation systems.
Speaker 1: Like like to get me from First Aba New to
Speaker 1: Central Park? Like what does that mean?
Speaker 2: So the idea would be if you went so, imagine
Speaker 2: going down into a modern subway system, but instead of
Speaker 2: waiting for a subway car moving in front of you,
Speaker 2: are continuously moving in front of you? Is a moving sidewalk?
Speaker 1: I love? And is it going so fast?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: And so the original idea was that, let's say you
Speaker 2: would have four moving sidewalks, and so the first one
Speaker 2: is moving at one and a half feet per minute,
Speaker 2: the second one at three, the next one at four.
Speaker 1: So I can get on the first one from a standstill,
Speaker 1: and then I can sort of accelerate by getting onto
Speaker 1: subsequent moving sidewalks, and then I got a moving sidewalk.
Speaker 1: That's just like tramming along right, Yes, And that sounds
Speaker 1: so fun. I mean, it doesn't seem like a good idea,
Speaker 1: but it seems fun.
Speaker 2: The one example that was built that you can actually
Speaker 2: see an operation at the nineteen hundred Paras Exposition. There
Speaker 2: was a moving sidewalk system like that that went around
Speaker 2: a large part of the exhibition exposition grounds and it
Speaker 2: was filmed, and if you google moving sidewalk Paris, you
Speaker 2: can watch movies of people getting on and off and
Speaker 2: it's hysterical.
Speaker 1: Lee Gray is a professor of architectural history at the
Speaker 1: University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Today's show was produced
Speaker 1: by Gabriel Hunter Chang. It was edited by Lyddy jeene
Speaker 1: Kott and engineered by Sarah Bruguier. You can email us
Speaker 1: at problem at Pushkin dot FM. I'm Jacob Boldstein and
Speaker 1: we'll be back next week with another episode of What's
Speaker 1: Your Problem.