• Elevator TriviaThe Door Close button is mostly there to give passengers the illusion of control. The button is only enabled in emergency situations with a key held by an authority.
  • The only known occurence of an elevator car free falling due to a snapped cable (barring fire or structural collapse), was in 1945 when a B25 Bomber crashed into the Empire State Building and severed the cables of two elevators. The elevator car on the 75th floor had a woman on it, but she survived due to the 1000 feet of coiled cable that had fallen, which lessened the impact.
  • Elevators are twenty times safer than escalators. There are twenty times more elevators than escalators, but only 1/3 more accidents
  • The New York Marriott was the first to introduce a smart elevator system that assigned passengers to elevators depending on what floor they were heading to.
  • Elevators used to require a two-man dispatcher/operator team to function. The advent of navigational buttons rendered those jobs obsolete.
  • Elevator hatches are generally bolted shut for safety reasons. In times of elevator crisis, the safest places is inside the elevator.