In Office Buildings

The Idea: Better elevators.

The Motive: To eliminate waste motion due to human stupidity, to accelerate service by mechanical perfection.

The Story: In almost every town, there is at least one building containing an elevator. In this small and dirty mechanical marvel there squats an old man, usually colored, holding in his hand a bit of frayed rope. When some citizen or sight-see-er enters the elevator with the desire to be hoisted upward, the old blackamoor makes a sad sound and tugs at his rope. Then there is a flash of light, a noise of grinding wheels, a draft of wind; with a slow, drunken irregularity, the rickety cage wobbles toward the sky.

In larger cities, the old man with the rope has been replaced by a rude whippersnapper in striped pants & buttons. In certain office buildings, he lounges against a lever, hurtling the passengers toward the floor which they desire to reach.

In Paris, at the Equitable Trust Building, No. 23 Rue de la Paix, an enormous dark room floats dreamily, with infinite deliberation, as far up as the fifth floor.

Such has been the fallibility of elevators in the past that last year an old gentleman from Wisconsin visiting Manhattan preferred to walk to the eleventh floor of the Equitable Building rather than entrust his person to the onslaughts of the pert chauffeurs who, with what seemed to him to be smiles of malice, offered to propel him toward his destination.

Last week that same old gentleman (as well as many another person) entered the new Graybar Building in Manhattan. Having business upon the 16th floor, he enquired for the stairs. Such, however, was the appearance of the elevator starter that he allowed himself to be cajoled by friends into accepting a lift. "Let me out at the 16th floor, please," he said. With amazement and a shock of terror, he watched the operator press a little button on a switchboard at his elbow. As other passengers entered the polished car, the operator pressed a button for each, corresponding to the designated floor. Finally, at a gesture from the starter, the operator touched a lever within the car, causing the outside doors to shut. Without delay, the car drifted upward at the rate of 800 feet per minute. At each floor for which a button had been pressed, the car automatically stopped, the doors automatically opened. At a touch of the lever the doors closed themselves, the elevator continued its flight. At the 16th floor, dizzy with surprise & pleasure, the old gentleman got out. . . . When he wished to come down again, the first car traveling downward stopped inevitably at his imperious pressure of the downward signal. The old gentleman noted that the floor of the elevator always corresponded precisely with the floor of the hallways at which it paused.

Had he been curious, the old gentleman would have been able to learn that these elevators, manufactured by the Otis Elevator Co., have already been installed in The Standard Oil, Transportation, Fred F. French, Court & Montague Street, and Electric Bond & Share Co. buildings; that they are to be installed in eight others* that, while push-button elevators have long been used in private houses or small apartment houses, never until recently have they been perfected for use in large office buildings; that 24 passenger elevators in the Graybar Building are of this type; that, in automatic and fool-proof fashion, they deal with every contingency save one: if a prospective passenger presses a signal at any floor, it will halt the next car if it is burdened with a capacity load.

* New York is not the only city equipped with one or more of these new elevators. Otis has installed or taken orders for them in: Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Youngstown, Minneapolis, Detroit, Austin, St. Louis, Omaha, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Jacksonville, Denver Boston