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Legends of the Fall
The New Yorker's Nick Paumgarten has a fun piece on the pleasures, perils, and social conventions of elevator travel:
Ask a vertical-transportation-industry professional to recall an episode of an elevator in free fall—the cab plummeting in the shaftway, frayed rope ends trailing in the dark—and he will say that he can think of only one. That would be the Empire State Building incident of 1945, in which a B-25 bomber pilot made a wrong turn in the fog and crashed into the seventy-ninth floor, snapping the hoist and safety cables of two elevators. Both of them plunged to the bottom of the shaft. One of them fell from the seventy-fifth floor with a woman aboard—an elevator operator...
Two things make tall buildings possible: the steel frame and the safety elevator. 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.
Sadly, fans of verticality are not welcome in DC.
Via Alex Massie.
Paul|4.16.08 @ 2:27PM|#
Interestingly, Seattle is (again)
welcoming fans of verticality.
Seattle discovered that you can't have anti-density laws (height
caps) and anti-sprawl laws on the books at the same time. One or
the other has to give.
|4.16.08 @ 2:29PM|#
At my last job, on of our analysts became stuck in one of the
elevators with, ironically, one of the building engineers. As a
result, we could hear her panic over his radio, her voice climbing
into a high-pitched squeaking, even though the elevator was stuck
for only a couple minutes.
She was known as "Beaker" asfter that incident.
But holy shit, stuck in an elevator for 41 hours? Helluva alarm
system.
|4.16.08 @ 2:40PM|#
Yes, real men who want to stay in shape will climb the stairs,
even if it's 20 flights.
Only effeminate gay men take elevators... not that there's anything
wrong with that!
Kolohe|4.16.08 @ 2:42PM|#
I must protest the penultultimate link's oft stated assertion
that the DC height restriction causes sprawl. The growth pattern of
DC throughout the 20 c is no different and in many mays less
'sprawly' than most other cities which 'took off' starting in the
1950's. (i.e. most of the cities in the South and West.)
Insert standard libertarian disclaimers and all that.
|4.16.08 @ 2:54PM|#
Kalohe -
Houston an Phoenix don't have skyscrapers?I think the point is that
building up reduces sprawl, not eliminate it.
|4.16.08 @ 3:17PM|#
The headline is kinda like this song's title, so I'll inflict it on you all. You're welcome.
Rhywun|4.16.08 @ 3:17PM|#
Sadly, fans of verticality are not welcome in DC.
Ridiculous article. Skyscraper-less cities around the world are
full of vitality. If DC isn't, don't blame it on the buildings.
America is full of lifeless downtowns that are loaded with
skyscrapers.
|4.16.08 @ 3:22PM|#
According the the Empire State Building's own site, poor Betty
Lou Oliver actually took her plunge a little while after the bomber
crash:
http://www.esbnyc.com/tourism/tourism_facts_esbnews_mar1996.cfm?CFID
|4.16.08 @ 3:26PM|#
Back in 1854 Elisha Otis made
the modern elevator possible by inventing a safety device that held
cars in place if the cables failed. So all those Hollywood images
of plunging elevator cars are nonsense. Interestingly, his original
invention would have stopped the plunging cars in even the 1945
incident.
My favorite elevators are those continually-moving belts with steps
and handholds they used to put in old factories. Up on one side,
down on the other. There's even version of one in the 1948 film
Berlin Express that had regular cars without any doors, with GI MPs
helping people into and out of the cars as they passed each floor.
Not exactly wheelchair-accessible, but cool.
|4.16.08 @ 3:30PM|#
The lack of skyscrapers makes DC a much more charming city. Further, if you are as big of a fan of large fallic objects that Howley seems to be, you can always go out to Tyson's Corner or Gaithersburg or any number of other suburbs and build to your heart's content.
Windypundit|4.16.08 @ 3:34PM|#
A chick who appreciates a long article about how elevators work...Kerry, you're so cool.
Kolohe|4.16.08 @ 3:42PM|#
J sub D-
I guess I was unclear
My point was that cities like Phoenix and Houston (& Atlanta)
w/skyscrapers are *just* as 'sprawly' as D.C. if not more so.
Blaming sprawl on the height restriction is a red herring.
Futhermore, my (completely un-fully researched) assumption is that
a lack of height restrictions does very little to reduce sprawl -
other factors completely overwhelm the market distortion caused by
a height restriction.
To wit- the article's claim that businesses moved to Tyson's corner
because they couldn't fit anymore in D.C. I call hogwash based on
the fact that the M street cooridor is undergoing a commericial
boom right now, so obviously there is in fact room. This could have
happened anytime over the last few decades except for the fact that
the neighborhood was god-awful. Corrupt local DC politics, not
height restrictions, is what pushed people into Md & Va for
most of 60's, 70's and 80's.
|4.16.08 @ 3:44PM|#
"To wit- the article's claim that businesses moved to Tyson's
corner because they couldn't fit anymore in D.C."
Yeah because Marion Berry and the nation's highest murder rate for
about 10 straight years had nothing to do with people moving to the
suburbs. Nothing at all. It was all about the lack of tall
buildings. I call shenanigans.
|4.16.08 @ 3:47PM|#
Irony fans will be pleased to know that one of the first "skyscrapers" was built in DC, by the Baltimore Sun. The Sun Building is on the 1400 block of G St., NW, (I think), the north side of the street. You can recognize it by the rising suns carved into the stone.
|4.16.08 @ 3:47PM|#
The lack of skyscrapers makes DC a much more charming
city.
How so, John?
My experience is that, to a person walking on a sidewalk, there is
no difference between an 8 story building fronting on that sidewalk
and a 100 story building. Beyond some number of stories, it's just
"tall."
|4.16.08 @ 3:51PM|#
On skyscrapers and sprawl: most of the land area of cities like
New York, Boston, or Philly consists of houses - single family
homes, two families, row houses or apartment houses. Add in
brownstones or apartment buildings less than 7 or so stories high,
and that's a very good portion of your land area.
That's most of the ballgame if you want to reduce sprawl - letting
people build houses on small lots. The new, highly-successful
anti-sprawl developments have been new urbanist neighborhoods, not
skyscrapers.
|4.16.08 @ 4:07PM|#
joe, sprawl isn't just about homes. Isn't it also about retail,
entertainment and office space? Offices in particular seem to fit
in with BFT* buildings. The drones have to push paper somewhere,
might as well be on top of each other. One fifty story building
replacing five 10 story buildings, frees up four blocks for
housing, parks, bars (especially important from a quality of life
standpoint) etc.
I'm just musing here. It's not that I support restrictions or
governmental incentives distorting property use decisions.
*Big fucking tall
|4.16.08 @ 4:11PM|#
Yes, real men who want to stay in shape will climb the
stairs, even if it's 20 flights.
The one real skyscraper I worked in didn't have air conditioning in
the stairwells, which were pretty much bare concrete. I climbed to
the 28th floor once, and arrived needing a shower.
Kolohe|4.16.08 @ 4:17PM|#
My experience is that, to a person walking on a sidewalk,
there is no difference between an 8 story building fronting on that
sidewalk and a 100 story building. Beyond some number of stories,
it's just "tall."
It makes a huge difference in the amount of sunlight tha reaches
the ground, which I think people underestimate the amount of effect
this has on what the street level view and employment of the space
looks like.
Plus, the skyscraper canyons in parts of Manhattan can practically
create their own localized weather patterns.
|4.16.08 @ 4:22PM|#
Sullivan's blogging of the ESB elevator crash yesterday pointed out that the other elevator operator stepped out of his car to have a smoke and so wasn't in the car when it fell.
|4.16.08 @ 4:40PM|#
I partly agree with Kolohe - as much as I hate height
restrictions they don't screw up North American cities quite as
much as many other factors. Take a look at Tokyo (or most Asian
cities, really) - they're generally quite low-built and yet they're
far more liveable and affordable than the downtown areas of North
American cities.
Mandatory off-street parking, subsidized public parking, crazy
zoning restrictions unrelated to height, kneejerk reactions to any
form of private (or at least minimally subsidized to allow private
competition) transit, other restrictions on development, outflow of
taxes from cities to rural areas... all of these are better
culprits.
(disclaimer: skyscrapers are awesome)
Rhywun|4.16.08 @ 4:40PM|#
One fifty story building replacing five 10 story buildings,
frees up four blocks for housing, parks, bars (especially important
from a quality of life standpoint) etc.
Scratch the parks (which tend to remain unused or become full of
crime, depending on the neighborhood) and the idea is sound. The
object is to avoid large gaps of inactivity. I've never been to DC
but based on many American towns it wouldn't surprise me that this
is the cause of the lack of vitality mentioned in the
article.
It makes a huge difference in the amount of sunlight tha
reaches the ground
This was largely fixed by a 1911 (?) zoning law requiring setbacks.
There are very few areas in NYC with a building more than 8 or 10
stories directly on the sidewalk.
|4.16.08 @ 4:50PM|#
How so, John?
My experience is that, to a person walking on a sidewalk, there is
no difference between an 8 story building fronting on that sidewalk
and a 100 story building. Beyond some number of stories, it's just
"tall."
A couple of reasons Joe. First, big buildings tend to be some for
or another of modern or post modern architecture. If you have seen
one you have pretty much seen them all. Atlanta for example,
actually has a pretty diverse and bustling downtown and midtown
full of tall buildings. The buildings all look alike. In
Washington, you get all sorts of different things from row houses
to shorter modern buildings and everythign in between. Second, you
feel less closed in and there is more light. The good parts of
Washington have always felt much more open and livable than midtown
Atlanta or the downtown areas of most big American cities. It is
pure taste on my part, I will admit, but to me DC would lose a lot
if they got rid of the building restrictions.
It really has nothing to do with the sprawl. DC is like every other
center city in this country; bad schools, crime, and high taxes
drove people out into the suburbs.
Rhywun|4.16.08 @ 5:02PM|#
Also: holy crap the RSS feed is slow.
Yeah, right?? Been like that for a couple days now.
|4.16.08 @ 6:53PM|#
The new, highly-successful anti-sprawl developments have
been new urbanist neighborhoods, not skyscrapers.
The odd thing being that the new highly successful new anti-sprawl
urbanist smart growth neighborhoods look identical to railroad
plats created 100 years ago.
In joe's fucked up world developers have no incentive for creating
8 $50,000 lots per acre and would rather create 3 $75,000 lots per
acre and pay the same amount to create them....they need government
to tell them to do it....In joe's world, government has an excuse
to exist cuz if it didn't it could not fix the things it has fucked
up over the last 100 years.
Geotpf|4.16.08 @ 7:51PM|#
This is one topic I am nearly 100% libertarian about. Eliminate zoning laws, espeically those that limit density. Restrictive zoning causes pollution, traffic, public transit to be ineffective and inefficient, destruction of virgin, undeveloped land, and higher housing prices, due to developers being forced to build out instead of up. The only zoning laws I approve are ones directly related to health and safety (no, you can't build a lead smelter next to a kindergarten; yes, you must meet fire codes).
|4.16.08 @ 10:49PM|#
The new, highly-successful anti-sprawl developments have
been new urbanist neighborhoods, not skyscrapers.
I as under the impression that, while being a socially-conscious
city planners wet dream, new urban mixed-use developments were all
money pits.
Maybe its just anecdotal bias, but I work in such a development,
and the owners have decided to forego the residential part of phase
II because they have yet to lease out all the original units that
they built four years ago. Even when the owners slash rents, they
can't seem to keep retailers (especially smaller ones) beyond their
initial six month commitment. This has been my observation at
pretty much every other mixed use development I've been to.
|4.17.08 @ 8:56AM|#
J sub D,
joe, sprawl isn't just about homes. Isn't it also about retail,
entertainment and office space?
Yes, of course. There isn't a magic bullet, but housing sprawl is
not only most of the sprawly land area, but also drives the rest.
If housing in built in the traditional style, much of the
commercial development would react to that. Transit would be
viable, so higher-density office uses in the form of central
business districts would come back. More of the retail would take
the form of corner stores, or storefronts in neighborhood centers,
or downtowns, to take advantage of the pedestrian- and
transit-friendly neighborhoods.
The BFT buildings would come about naturally, as a consequence of a
smarter pattern of residential development.
|4.17.08 @ 9:04AM|#
John,
Fair points, but neither one is about height per se. It is
certainly possible to build tall and still maintain an interesting
vista, and there are techniques - setting back the taller
buildings, stepping back stories as a buildings exceeds certain
heights - that go a long way to addressing the light issues.
joshua corning,
The odd thing being that the new highly successful new
anti-sprawl urbanist smart growth neighborhoods look identical to
railroad plats created 100 years ago.
They do that on purpose. Those traditional neighborhoods
incorporated the wisdom of the ages in how a good town is laid out.
We chose to forget all that wisdom in the 20th century, because we
were just so smart, and could just use technology to brute-force
solutions, instead using design.
In joe's fucked up world developers have no incentive for
creating 8 $50,000 lots per acre and would rather create 3 $75,000
lots per acre and pay the same amount to create them
Actually, I've written exactly the opposite. You should spend less
time arguing with the liberal in your head.
Hugh,
Places like Celebration and Hale Center in Florida, and Brewster
Commons in Massachusetts have been enormously successful. There
real estate market is taking a beating these days, all across the
spectrum.
Seth Goldin|4.17.08 @ 5:21PM|#
Don't forget the actual video of the man stuck in the elevator
for 41 hours. It's hypnotic to watch.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/2008/04/21/080421_elevators
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