City Journal: Walkup apartments are more American than they may seem. A recent report by Stephen Smith, founder of the Center for Building in North America, highlights the scarcity and high cost of elevators in the United States and Canada compared with other high-income nations. These costs merit attention for their own sake, but they also exemplify more general problems with construction that could hinder efforts to rebuild America.
North America has a large elevator deficit. The U.S., according to Smith, has 3.1 elevators per thousand residents, while Canada has 4.1. By contrast, Greece has at least 41, Switzerland has 27, and Spain has 23. One reason for this disparity is that North America has relatively few apartment buildings, but even the Netherlands, where apartments make up a similar share of housing, has more elevators—5.2 per thousand residents. In Europe, Smith writes, “elevators are an expected feature of virtually every new apartment building.” Not so here: in New York City, for instance, four-story walkups, the tallest allowed, seldom have elevators. read more
…where this is headed…
“‘Happy Vertical People Transporter’
The lifts in the Hitchhiker’s Guide offices are called Happy Vertical People Transporters. As designed by the Corporation, they are meant to be sentient (enough to argue with) and have “defocused temporal perception.” The latter concept is meant to enable the lifts to see far enough into the future to arrive at a floor before a potential passenger realizes they wanted a lift, and thus remove all the tedious chatting and friend-making as per old-fashioned lifts. Often they feel rebellious about the concept of only moving up and down, insist in taking part in the passengers’ decision-making process, sometimes experiment with moving sideways, and ultimately take to sulking in basements. It was because of these lifts that devices called “staircases” regained popularity in the galaxy. Hitchhikers can earn money counseling neurotic Transporters.”
-Douglas Adams, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy”
https://hitchhikersguidetoearth.fandom.com/wiki/Sirius_Cybernetics_Corporation
first covid shot heart damage then heart attack by the third floor. Never mind 4th floor, they’re not going to make it.
Perhaps some of the fired bureaucrats who aren’t qualified or trained for other work can be useful by carrying old folks up and down stairs piggyback. Make their (low) base pay come from condo fees and the like so they’ll have to scramble for tips.
Addressing the lack of elevators is uplifting. Don’t let us down.
SNS, I used to have strange dreams about being trapped in elevators years ago that shot up like a rocket to the highest floor and then would burst out of the elevator shaft and go flying all over the place, up and down, sideways and backwards like a roller coaster doing an inverted loop de loop. I still remember those dreams and have no idea what they were all about to this day. I also have a very active imagination so that may be part of it as well.
There’s always the issue of too many fat people in this country. Seems to me the solution is to lose weight rather than haul it up and down on elevators!
On that note, I’d pay good money to see the Prickster try to take the stairs all the way to the top of the Sears Tower. That fukker would be on a gurney by the second floor!
geoff – go flying all over the place, up and down, sideways and backwards like a roller coaster doing an inverted loop de loop.
I used to do that every now and then after a pariclularly bad/good meal when I worked in Mexico…
so long as escalators are okay.
geoff the aardvark
Saturday, 15 February 2025, 11:02 at 11:02 am
‘SNS, I used to have strange dreams about being trapped in elevators years ago that shot up like a rocket to the highest floor and then would burst out of the elevator shaft and go flying all over the place, up and down, sideways and backwards like a roller coaster doing an inverted loop de loop.’
…maybe you saw this movie?
https://youtu.be/qUvIiBUBe-g?si=ZuZkK8_xv4fyymuk
…it kind of fits your description…
Here in New England there are tons of 3 & 4 story walkups.
Most of the buildings are too old to put elevators in.
There’s no room unless the staircase is taken out and that comes with all new issues.
If you can’t manage the walk you rent on the 1st floor
Historical note: before elevators, 3-4 stories were about as tall as a building got. So a 4 story walk-up is about all the stairs most people are willing to take routinely.
But we have plenty of yellow bumpy ramps on the curbs, beeping crosswalk signs, wheelchair lifts on mass transit buses, massive hoists for getting people in and out of pools and braille buttons in the existing elevators. How did the Americans With Disabilities Act miss mandating elevators?
Spent six days at the Hyatt Regency at the Dallas Airport last month. They have six elevators. They only had two turned on the whole week. Huge bottlenecks as we tried to get to our events.
At my first job as an engineer I worked with a technician who refused to use the elevator in our three story building unless he was hauling something. He would run up and down the stairs. He said it was good exercise. He was around 50 and in great physical shape. That stuck with me ever since and for decades I have always used the stairs in the buildings I work in unless I am hauling something. I usually run unless I am feeling bad.
And yet 75% of our population is obese. Take the stairs fat peeps.