Elevator

“ The slight, impudent structure of the elevator rises through the solitude, like a thing that merits ruin, yet it is better than something more elaborate, for it looks temporary, and since there must be an elevator, it is well to have it of the most transitory aspect. ”

“ But in the tapestry-lined hall he stumbled blindly, then, spurred by the presence of the footman, pulled himself together, and entered the elevator.
When at last he had donned his things and issued forth into the street, he turned instinctively southward without the slightest idea where he was going, and without a single backward glance at the upper window where a graceful, girlish form stood half revealed against a background of old rose damask. ”

“ You are in a palace. You are among marbles and porphyries. You breathe easily in vast and brilliant foyers that never see daylight. And then you come to those mysterious palisaded shafts with which the building and every other building in New York is secretly honeycombed, and the palisade is opened and an elevator snatches you up. I think of American cities as enormous agglomerations in whose inmost dark recesses innumerable elevators are constantly ascending and descending, like the angels of the ladder....
THE SKY-SCRAPERS OF LOWER NEW YORK AT NIGHT
The elevator ejects you. ”

“ The badge of fear brands the novice. Standing hat in hand, nervous, apprehensive, gulpy, with the elevator door clanging behind him, and the sacred inner door closed before him, he offers up a silent and paradoxical "Thank heaven!" at the office girl's languid "Not in," and dives into the friendly shelter of the next elevator going down. ”

“ One of the prettiest sights about the ice harvesting is the elevator in operation. When all works well, there is an unbroken procession of the great crystal blocks slowly ascending this incline. [page 175] They go up in couples, arm in arm, as it were, like friends up a stairway, glowing and changing in the sun, and recalling the precious stones that adorned the walls of the celestial city. When they reach the platform where they leave the elevator, they seem to step off like things of life and volition ”

“ Then there is the elevator, lift, ascenseur. America has had the benefit of this invaluable contrivance for a generation and a half, and it is now used in all our cities and villages, in all hotels, in all lofty business buildings and factories, and in many private dwellings. But we can’t spread it, we can’t beguile Europe with it. In Europe an elevator is even to this day a rarity and a curiosity. ”

“ A slow, safe elevator, manned by the very oldest and heaviest official in full uniform whom I have ever seen in the like charge, mounted with us to upper chambers, where we knew no more till we awoke in the morning to find the face of nature washed clean by that gentle rain, and her breath fresh and sweet, coming from the grateful lips of the myriad flowers which embloom most English towns. ”

“ The ancient elevator, or "lift," as they called it in England, has expanded until now whole rooms, filled with ladies and gentlemen, are bodily carried up from the first story to the roof; a professional musician playing the while on the piano--not the old-fashioned thing our grandmothers used, but a huge instrument capable of giving forth all sounds of harmony from the trill of a nightingale to the thunders of an orchestra. ”

“ I The elevator-boy tossed her a kindly grin as she stepped into the elevator. But she seemed not to notice. She was a small woman in gray—gray eyes and hair, and the close-fitting suit and small hat were of soft gray. Any one passing her in a crowd would not have noticed her. ”

“ Then there's a sort of cough and something dilates in the wall. It forms a perfect door and the elevator stands there waiting. You get in, gulping out something about going all the way down, and then wonder how a machine geared for voice operation can make anything of that. What the deuce would that lowest basement be called? But the elevator has closed and is moving downward in a hurry. It coughs again and you're at the original level. You get out—and realize you don't have a light. ”

“ The ordinary elevator is very useful in a large business or commercial house, where it saves the legs of people who, if they had to tramp up flight after flight of stairs, would probably not spend so much money as they would be ready to part with if their vertical travel from one floor to another was entirely free of effort. But the ordinary lift is, like a railway, intermittent. We all know what it means to stand at the grille and watch the cage slide downwards on its journey of, perhaps, four floors, when we want to go to a floor higher up. ”

“ We have the elevator, an invention for making the many as well off as the few, an approximate arrangement for giving first floors to everybody, and putting all men on a level at the same price—one more of a thousand instances of the extraordinary manner in which the mechanical arts have devoted themselves from first to last to the Constitution of the United States. ”

“ The shadow of the descending elevator flashed across the ground glass and the door slid open.
The magnate went suddenly weak in the knees. He was beaten; he knew it! For the first time in his life his bluff had been called—and by a woman! He wavered, he caved!
“Goin’ down?” intoned the elevator man.
“I think not,” answered the Honorable Amos T. Wiltbank sheepishly. ”

“ Near here, less than two blocks away, I saw a shining object on the sidewalk, and picked up a key, which I was more than surprised to have traced to Mr. Leroy. I suppose he dropped it when he was hanging around here, beneath my cousin's window, on his way to the midnight train. I then came on to this house, and, after loitering about a minute in the street, I saw the elevator begin to rise. The main front door is always open, and I came in and walked up-stairs. It is easy to evade the elevator, even if it passes. ”

“ We have to walk up a flight of stairs, and there is an elevator waiting, fortunately with the door open.
"What about the time machine?" you ask.
"Since nobody ever stole it, it's safe."
We get in the elevator, and I say "first" to it. It gives out a coughing noise and the basement openings begin to click by us. There's no feeling of acceleration—some kind of false gravity they use in the future. Then the door opens, and the elevator says "first" back at us.
It's obviously a service elevator and we're in a dim corridor, with nobody around. I grab your hand and shake it. "You go that way. ”

“ Into the elevator. The last hope is gone. The door clangs and you look hopelessly about you at the stupid faces of your fellow passengers. How can people be so clownish? Of course, there is always the chance that the elevator will fall and that you will all be terribly hurt. ”

“ If you could slice off the stories above the thirteenth, as you slice off the top of an egg, and plant them down in Europe, they would of themselves make a biggish hotel according to our standards. This first elevator voyage is the prelude to how many others! For the past week I seem to have spent the best part of my time in elevators. I must have travelled miles on miles at right angles to the earth's surface. ”

“ Now an American gentleman invariably takes off his hat in the lift. He does not take off his hat in the hotel, even if it is crowded with ladies. But he always so salutes a lady in the elevator; and this marks the difference of atmosphere. The lift is a room, but the hotel is a street. But during my first delusion, of course, I assumed that he uncovered in this tiny temple merely because he was in church. There is something about the very word elevator that expresses a great deal of his vague but idealistic religion. ”

“ In a church, in going down a narrow aisle, the woman precedes the man.
The lift or elevator, as well as the corridors and lobbies of a public building, the office of a hotel, and the vestibule of a theater, are public highways. In these places a man keeps on his hat, his deportment being the same as he would observe in the street. But when the lift or elevator is fitted up as a drawing room, such as is used in hotels and other semi-public buildings, a man removes his hat when the other sex is of the number of its passengers. ”

“ The man knew now that whoever his assailants might be they were out in force and in earnest. Cautiously he worked his way along the shadows, his luck still holding until finally he had reached his point of vantage within a few yards of the open gate that led to the elevator itself. To gain that haven he must dash for it across a band of unmasked moonlight. ”

“ He had a bad half minute when several young women came hurriedly into the hall and rushed for the elevator. Perhaps she was among them, and this would be by no means the place he had planned to meet Marguerite, in the elevator!
But the young women were none of them the girl he sought; they were obviously secretaries hastening to their various jobs, and he drew an involuntary breath of relief as the elevator shot up to the floor to which he was going. The young women all got out at different stops by the way. ”

“ As with one mind, Lemuel and I seated ourselves on a step and waited until Henry should get the elevator running again and could proceed to the street floor.
For a while we could hear no noise but the grating of metal on metal as Henry worked with the starting lever of the elevator, and then we heard the two voices of the fathers.
“It is a ruse,” said one father. “They are pretending the elevator is stuck, and when we grow impatient and start up the stairs they will come down with a rush and escape us.” ”

“ The lift is 754 feet and shortens the walk-in trip by about one and three-quarter hours. The elevator lets its passengers out at a point adjacent to the Big Room and the lunchroom. Installation of the elevator made it possible for elderly people and those who were not physically capable of walking in through the natural tunnel corridor to view the magic wonders of the great subterranean fairyland. ”

“ While he is away you will find two wires dangling down the elevator shaft. Attach them to these wires from the bell and the batteries—these two—you know how to do that. The wires will be hanging in the third shaft—only one elevator is running at night, the first. The moment you hear the bell begin to ring; jump into the elevator and come up to the twelfth floor—we'll need you.”
As Kennedy and I rode up in the elevator I could not help thinking what an ideal place a down-town office building is for committing a crime, even at this early hour of the evening. ”

“ We went along the hallway. I took fast digs at the rooms and hall ahead of us; the whole coast seemed clear. Waiting for the two-bit elevator was nerve wracking; hospitals always have such poky elevators. But eventually it came and we trundled aboard. The pilot was no big-dome. He smiled at Nurse Farrow and nodded genially at me. He was probably a blank, jockeying an elevator is about the top job for a non-psi these days.
But as the elevator started down, a doctor came out of one of the rooms on the floor below. ”

“ The elevator stopped with a jerk. They carried the boy out and sent for the store doctor. Bob and Betty never had to be reminded, in all the years to come, to look sharp when riding in elevators. The memory of that bruised and battered face was warning enough.
"It's a dangerous machine," said Uncle Jack as they left the store. "A fellow who will scuffle in an elevator is foolish enough for almost anything. ”

“ My house is not the kind that seems to crave an elevator. An elevator in my house would lose money. There is no popular clamor for one, and if I were to put one in I would have to abolish the dining-room. ”

“ The elevator as well as the escalator will play a vastly important part in the fabrication of the new Macy's. The one has by no means been overshadowed by the [Pg 269] growing importance of the other. There are to be in all fifty-six elevators, of one type or another, in the reconstructed building. Of all these none is more interesting than the ingenious lifts by which whole motor trucks, laden as well as empty, are carried into the structure, up eleven floors to the merchandising reception rooms and down into the basement and sub-basement for filling for the city delivery. ”

“ Others just as positively declare that the elevator is the same as the street, and that it is unnecessary to raise the hat. The question of drafts and colds in the head have entered into the discussion—but ultimately all writers of etiquette reach the same conclusion: as the elevator is so small and boasts a ceiling, it may be considered in the same class as a room, and the polite man will keep his head uncovered—especially while there are women in it. The man who is very susceptible to colds may lift his hat upon entering the car and replace it immediately. ”

“ The floorwalker, in a new frockcoat, bowed pleasantly to them and waved them to the elevator. Lampley pressed the button, noting that there was no indicator above, that there never had been indicators over any of the elevator entrances. ”

“ There are not only forty-four elevators in the city itself, but also forty elevator companies that have built more than two thousand elevators in the wheat States of the Northwest. The Jumbo of all elevators is here—a stupendous granary that holds 6,000,000 bushels, as much as may be reaped by two thousand self-binders from seven hundred square miles of land. ”

“ On the American side, not far below the railway suspension bridge, is an elevator more than a hundred and eighty feet high, which is meant to let people down to the shore below, and to give a view of the rapids on their own level. ”

“ The elevator shown in Fig. 96 is a unique mechanical toy well worth one's making. Release the little car at the top floor, and it will descend to the ground floor, and then return to the starting point, without you having to touch it a second time. A magical elevator? ”

“ Such elevators may be constructed to carry either grain or minerals. The advantages are greater capacity than an ordinary elevator of the same dimensions and a more uniform delivery; moreover, smoother running is secured, since the buckets being close together need not plunge intermittently through the contents of the elevator-well. ”