One in 196,000,000

On the 14th floor of Manhattan's Wurlitzer Building one evening last week 15 men and women stepped out of a night school, started down in an elevator. As the car passed the twelfth floor, it picked up abnormal speed. The operator tried to check it with the control lever, failed. Instants later the car smashed into the spring buffers at the bottom of the pit, bounced up again, settled for good with its floor split, its walls and mechanism utterly demolished. Jounced into a screaming jumble on the floor were the passengers, all alive, but two with broken legs, others with sprained ankles, bruises. These injuries, which in train, ship, automobile or airplane wrecks would not be considered unusual, last week caused headlines because they occurred on the world's greatest, safest, most reliable means of transport.

In New York City alone there are 41,470 elevators--more than the total on any continent except North America. Every day they travel 100,000 miles, lift and lower 15,000,000 passengers--twice the number carried by all other New York transport systems combined. Very rarely there is a brief delay through mechanical error. Much more rarely is there an accident. In 1934, last year for which figures are available, there were 96 elevator accidents in Manhattan. The ratio: one death for every 196,000,000 passengers: one injury for every 40,000,000. For the U. S. as a whole, in 1934 there were 231 deaths from elevator accidents. Some were caused by fretful passengers jumping in or out too soon or late, or otherwise misbehaving. The rest were caused by carelessness on the part of operators.

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