A friend from Gramercy Park lived there, and until 1994 it had the city's last hydraulic elevator, powered by pressure from a water main.
As well as being a gloriously appointed Victorian house museum, it is an early example of postindustrial sustainable architecture: completed in 1870, it was the first building in the world to use hydroelectricity, with its lights and elevator powered by a water pump and turbine engine fed by a nearby stream.
If there's any stretch of this river that doesn't hum and throb — with barges, tugs, grain elevators, power plants, coal depots, refineries — I didn't see it.
At this point there was five feet of water in her lobby, and the elevators' power was out.
It was a dark and dangerous, yet extraordinarily well organized place, where wild beasts, animals, gladiators and condemned criminals waited to be brought onstage via trap doors, ramps or elevators powered by men.
The two-year-old, 48-story City Towers Toyosu, with 1,063 apartments in two towers, is fitted with emergency elevators powered by backup generators that can start automatically and operate for up to seven hours.
Fast Otis elevators powered by electricity rather than steam-driven hydraulics began to be installed in skyscrapers for the first time, with Ellithorpe safety air cushions protecting the passengers in the case of failure.
The devices are mechanical and not electrical, and operate even when an elevator loses power.
And in Japan and the rest of Asia, Toshiba's efforts to create a hip image for itself are handicapped by some legacy products like light bulbs and air-conditioners, as well as goods that fall under the category of "social infrastructure," like elevators and power turbines.
