HARD TO BELIEVE, but when 2,200 of the city’s elevator operators and starters in 123 office buildings went on strike, a half-million people were thrown for a loop because there was no one to run the elevators for them. It actually required some skill to run those old lifts, so tenants either took the stairs, stayed home or went shopping (Loop stores enjoyed a spike in business at the start of the five-day walkout). Chicagoan Mary Bonzide, however, was undaunted. The 70-year-old trudged up 19 floors at 30 N. Michigan Ave. to get her hearing aid fixed.
– Number of elevator operators and starters employed at City Hall in 1964, years after its elevators went automatic: 12.
– Speed of the world’s fastest elevator, in the Taipei 101 tower in Taiwan: 1,010 METERS PER MINUTE.
– Movie star who once had been an elevator operator at the Marshall Field’s State Street store: DOROTHY LAMOUR.
Sources: Tribune archives, news reports, Museum of American Heritage
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“All safe, gentlemen.”
-ELISHA GRAVES OTIS, AFTER CUTTING THE ROPE HOLDING UP HIS NEW SAFETY ELEVATOR IN AN 1854 DEMONSTRATION
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nwatkins@tribune.com
