Anyone here interested in elevators

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Is there anyone here that is interested in elevators? I stumbled upon the elevator community over a year and it resparked my childhood interest in elevators. I filmed my first elevator a few days ago at a downtown hotel, with many more elevator videos planned, including those at downtown parking garages, a couple of manually controlled elevators, the ones I rode the most during my childhood (even if they were replaced/modernized) and the ones at my local community college after the fall semester starts.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4g0ElIFcZk[/youtube]

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This was really good. I wanted to see the doors open and close, but there was a little of it at the end so that's good. The buttons are so fun. When I am in an elevator I always want to be the person who presses the buttons, even though I'm all grown up (to put it kindly) and have kids, who aren't little anymore, who also want to push the buttons. Where I live I hardly ever get to go in an elevator, so I for one am looking forward to more videos.

I was both a little nervous and a little angry when I did this video. I tried to film the bus as I went downtown, but a couple of crackheads got into an argument, so I stopped recording and deleted the video. Plus, I missed the transfer, so that gave me the perfect opportunity to go to the hotel and film my first elevator video. There were a few things I had forgotten to do, like show the emergency phone, demonstrate the bumpers/electric eye sensors, and mention that the door close button did not work. Plus someone called it from the bottom floor before I hit the button for the top floor as I started recording inside the elevator. Had I not been nervous and angry, I might have started recording in the lobby just before calling the elevator.

In part due to those events, I already planned a retake of these elevators by the time the holiday season arrives. I've got many more elevator videos planned in various places including downtown parking garages, hotels, a hospital where I rode the elevators a lot when I was little, two community college campuses, two antique manually-operated elevators, plus many more places. I am going to a medical center tomorrow to get some blood work done, so I will be able to film the elevators there after the blood work is done.

I also love elevators. I've loved them since I was very little. I remember the elevator that my family used to use when we would go to visit my Great Grandma when my sister and I were very small. I was 5 and she was two and it was an older style elevator with many buttons and a half circle metre with a hand that would move back or forth, depending if you were going up or down and what floor you were going to.

I like to imagine and daydream about what electric elevators were like in the 40s and decades before than.

I've never seen an elevator with a hand that depicted the direction of travel. I've seen some elevators, both older and newer ones with arrows that depicted the direction the elevator was traveling. I haven't watched many videos of elevators outside the United States, so I might come across a video of an elevator with a hand depicting the direction of travel. I know that in the 1920's Otis developed an automatic elevator system using relay logic controls that did not require an operator. Automatic elevators became more common in the 1930's and 1940's.

At the hospital where I rode the elevators a lot in the late 90's-early 00's, there were two banks of older Dover elevators, the southmost elevator in both banks were already replaced with newer Dover Impulse elevators. Also, there was a bank of three Otis Series 1 elevators near the north part of the hospital that was probably installed in the 90's. I wonder if the older Dover elevators are still there unmodded when I go back to film them. I'm highly sure the Otis elevators will still be there.

Huh... interesting thread. I've never had a particular liking for elevators... Well its weird but I often can say... feel the differences between when one is moving. Always found elevators the accelerated and decelerated too quickly often uncomfortable with the senses. More fancier elevators from fancier buildings like hotels and business offices including hospital elevators are often more comfortable of a ride to take.

I used to avoid elevators as I got stuck in one once. but my aging joints force me to give in to the Otis.

It's probably hydraulic elevators that are uncomfortable on your senses. They almost always run at one speed, even when starting. Traction elevators on the other hand, start and stop smoothly and can easily run at different speeds. Hotels, business offices, and hospitals often have traction elevators due to having more than 5 stories, even though a few such buildings with up to 8 stories might have hydraulic elevators.

Here's a story. I rode the elevators at the hotel I filmed my first elevator video back in 2008, and it honestly was a little scary how fast it was. I have had dreams of elevators accelerating and decelerating at ridiculously high speeds. I learned to take the stairs whenever possible in my dreams lol. The last few dreams with elevators in them, the elevators acted normal and in one dream, I actually took the elevator for two round trips. Five years later, their speed wasn't scary, even though when I went to film the elevators, it was only my second time riding them.


I hope I don't get stuck in one when I'm filming them. Even if I do get stuck, I'll still keep on filming elevators. I know that most elevator enthusiasts have gotten stuck at least once in an elevator while doing their hobby.

Indeed, fascinating. It's always the ones that have a more sudden start and stop that the senses don't like. Heck I've learned something new today.

Elevators will be the death of me. The one at my work has tried to take me places without closing the doors, has tried to open the doors mid-rise, and decided to change course a few times. We have TWO FLOORS. The elevator is for the disabled, so I usually take the stairs. However, I have to clean it.

It's sentient, and hates me. I promise.

if I were an elevator i'd hate people also.

Its not an interest of mine, but I did have a Saturday job as a Kid working for a Lift Engineering company, whilst my work mainly involved painting the grids, I did hang around with the workers whilst they where doing the real work upon the roof etc.

I was also sad to see at the House of Lords where I work, that they still had one old fashioned lift, were you had to manually draw shut the outer doors and then draw the shutter closed before the lift would work, it was like a lovely fun museum piece, but health and safety made them replace it recently with a modern one where you just step in and press a button.

No, I have claustrophobia. I use the stairs and avoid elevators if I can help it.

Hell no. One of my greatest fears is plunging to my death in a elevator shaft. Plus I don't like the unpredictability of when the elevator will suddenly stop, the door open, and a crowd of people will suddenly out of no where invade my personal space. Just watching your video causes me stress.

I do like your paper bus collection though.

My son who will be 2yo next month and has mild PDD-NOS is obsessed with elevators. He breaks down crying if he can't stand at an elevator door and constantly press the button. He will sit and stare at the doors. He will break away from my grasp to run to an elevator bank and throw a huge tantrum if he has to leave. He waves hello and goodbye to empty elevator cars.

When he gets older, like 9 or 10 or so, if he's still into elevators, please encourage him to join the elevator community. You can take him around to various places in town and nearby cities to film elevators in places like hotels, malls, parking garages, colleges, and other places where elevators exist. In the meantime, you can show him YouTube videos from people in the elevator community such as dieselducy, cubsrule2040, pnwelevator, TheWildEeper, CaptainElevator42189, and artiepenguin1. Those are only a few people in the elevator community. My YouTube username is MMTfan1. Many people in the elevator community are on the autism spectrum, so your son will fit right in. Some are as young as 9 or 10, and some, like dieselducy, are well into their thirties.