Inventor in New York City

¶ … Inventor in New York City

If I had the opportunity to spend a day in New York City, I would ideally spend it with Elisha Otis. Elisha Otis is credited with inventing the elevator, but this is actually incorrect. He invented the modern brake which made elevators safer and instilled a greater degree of public confidence in them. This was something that was absolutely crucial for more people to accept elevators as a modern device to make life more practical and convenient. Elevators of all kinds existed for centuries and centuries, but human beings still tended to create building that were on average three floors high. Just because elevators were invented wasn't enough to make people use them. People had to feel confident about them or else they were just sophisticated gadgets that no one had any faith in.

One of the reasons I would want to spend time in New York City with Otis is because one of the things that New York is most famous for is its skyline: New York has a tremendous amount of truly glorious buildings that act as jewels against the night sky. The skyscrapers of New York truly are triumphs and signs of the progress of mankind and what human beings are able to accomplish. I would talk with Otis about how none of these skyscrapers would ever have existed if not for his mechanical brake. Without the mechanical brake that Otis invented, who knows if people would ever have quite accepted elevators. There might have always been a fear attached to riding in elevators which would have no doubt made people reluctant to use them. This would absolutely have made the creation of tall buildings like skyscrapers something that was considered undesirable. People wouldn't want to walk up ten flights of stairs, much less 60. Otis, by demonstrating how safe elevators truly were, established the collective trust of society in these inventions. This trust paved the way for the modern skyscraper.

Thus, when spending time with Otis, I would want us to go on an architecture and explorative tour of some of New York City's more glorious buildings, both old and new. I would like to hear Otis' thoughts on some of New York's more historic structures as well as get his take on New York's more modern buildings. For instance, I would like to visit the flatiron building with Otis and hear his thoughts and musings on the architectural details and structure. I would like to travel to the top of the Empire State building and the top of the Chrysler Building with Otis and see what he thinks about the speed and function of these modern elevators along with the view of the rapidly changed New York City.