Elements and Materials
Safety Elevator
Building Component
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The passenger elevator with an automatic brake that grips if the hoisting rope fails, demonstrated theatrically by Elisha Otis at the New York exhibition of 1854 when he cut the rope of the platform he stood on. Without it upper floors were the cheap floors; with it height became valuable, and the tall building became worth constructing at all.
Facts
Element Kind First Used EraDemonstrated 1854; first passenger installation 1857 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Without the safety elevator, height had no rental value.
Seen In
Sources
1. Encyclopedia Britannica
Elevator (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationElisha Otis sectionQuote, Elisha Otis section
He demonstrated it at the New York exposition in the Crystal Palace in a dramatic, death-defying presentation in 1854; the first such passenger elevator was installed at 488 Broadway in New York City on 23 March 1857.
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