The New Yorker presents a condensed security camera video of Nicholas White, who spent 41 (!) hours trapped in a New York City elevator.
Of course, I would have John McClane’d outta there way before 41 hours.
The article the video accompanies, Up And Then Down by Nick Paumgarten, is a fascinating read… (seriously!)
The elevator, underrated and overlooked, is to the city what paper is to reading and gunpowder is to war. Without the elevator, there would be no verticality, no density, and, without these, none of the urban advantages of energy efficiency, economic productivity, and cultural ferment. The population of the earth would ooze out over its surface, like an oil slick, and we would spend even more time stuck in traffic or on trains, traversing a vast carapace of concrete. And the elevator is energy-efficient—the counterweight does a great deal of the work, and the new systems these days regenerate electricity. The elevator is a hybrid, by design.
Loading ...