Free Republic

For most city-dwellers, the elevator is an unremarkable machine that inspires none of the passion or interest that Americans afford trains, jets, and even bicycles. Wilk is a member of a small group of elevator experts who consider this a travesty. Without the elevator, they point out, there could be no downtown skyscrapers or residential high-rises, and city life as we know it would be impossible. In that sense, they argue, the elevator’s role in American history has been no less profound or transformative than that of the automobile.

(CNSNews.com) – As part of his ongoing campaign to transform New York City into what he calls “Fit City,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg is promoting “active design” for low-income housing developments being built there, including plans to prompt residents to use the stairs and rooftop gardens for growing “healthy” foods. In 2010, the Bloomberg Administration and other public and private sector groups issued the “Active Design Guidelines,” which promotes car-free neighborhoods, encourages “physical movement” inside buildings and “improves access to nutritious food.”The Center for Action Design was launched next as a resource for architects and developers who sign on to the...

A Finnish company says that it has solved a problem that has vexed the designers of ultra-tall skyscrapers such as the 828-meter Burj Khalifa in Dubai or the 509-meter Taipei 101 in Taiwan – and we'll pause for a moment to let you guess what that problem might be. Ready? It's the fact that elevators are currently limited to a maximum travel distance of around 500 meters. The Burj Khalifa, in fact, has an elevator that holds the world record for the longest travel distance: 504m (1,654 feet). And what's keeping elevators from exceeding that limit? Time for another pause...

Tzipi Livni, leader of Hatnua, harshly attacked Bayit Yehudi chairman Naftali Bennett, in a behind-the-scenes incident that took place just before a televised interview pitted them against each other at week's end. According to Walla! News, the two rode the elevator together before appearing on Nissim Mishal's show on Channel 2. Bennett initiated the conversation, telling Livni she had gone too far with a Facebook status in which she referred to a report that said Yitzhak Rabin's assassin, Yigal Amir, was going to vote for Bennett. Livni allegedly told him: "I don't regret it; I don't even want to talk...

Police say they are questioning a man in connection to the death of a New York City woman set on fire in the elevator of her apartment building. New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said Sunday that the 47-year-old man went into a police precinct a couple of miles from where the attack happened in Brooklyn and said he had started a fire. Authorities say the man has made statements implicating himself and came in overnight reeking of gasoline. He hasn't been charged. The unidentified man was waiting for the woman, who was in her 60s, when the elevator...

NEW YORK – A woman burned to death in the elevator of her Brooklyn apartment building Saturday after a man ambushed her, sprayed her with liquid and set her afire with a Molotov cocktail, police said.

Frightened New Yorkers shun elevators after crush horrorBy HELEN FREUND, BILL SANDERSON and BOB FREDERICKS Last Updated: 12:17 PM, December 16, 2011 The routine trip up and down elevators across the city was a traumatic affair for many New Yorkers yesterday following the terrifying death of an advertising executive who was crushed to death as she headed to work. “I’ve been taking the stairs today. I usually take the stairs at home, but not here,” said Lisa Miller, 41, who climbed 10 floors to her office. She works across the street from 285 Madison Ave., where Young & Rubicam exec...

George Davis had planned a special night for his wife. To celebrate her birthday and Valentine’s Day, Davis had scored tickets for the couple to take in a rare concert by Anita Baker Saturday night at the Chicago Theater, his family said.

Sherwood and Caroline Wadsworth shared a life together for more than 68 years. The couple’s love story began in college and survived World War II, the only time they were apart. Sometime in the past week, their lives ended together. Police found their bodies Wednesday morning lying side by side on the floor of an elevator stuck between the second and third floor of their secluded home overlooking the marsh on Fiddler Lane. Both Sherwood Wadsworth, 90, and his wife, 88, died of heat exposure after being trapped for several days inside the small indoor elevator

Sunrise man had been accused of attacking officers After a beat down in an elevator, Joshua Daniel Ortiz ended up with his nose broken and facing a charge of battering a Fort Lauderdale Is your Fort Lauderdale restaurant clean? - Click Here. police officer. The 22-year-old Sunrise man was surprised and delighted to learn Wednesday that Broward prosecutors were dropping the case against him after reviewing an elevator surveillance video showing three officers aggressively rush and beat Ortiz to the ground. Once the Dec. 5 video surfaced, it altered the course of the case. It contradicted police reports that Ortiz...

Earlier this week, I was shocked and saddened to learn of the death of Dan Kliman, 38, who was a founding member of San Francisco Voice for Israel (SFV4I). I knew Dan from my days as a Bay Area pro-America, pro-Israel grassroots activist, which included a year-long stint with SFV4I. Alongside Dan, other SFV4I members, and members of Protest Warrior, I counter-protested the local Israel-haters on many an occasion and it became an integral part of my political education. (Read some of my after-reports here, here, and here). Dan was dedicated, passionate, and very in-your-face, both as an outspoken Zionist...

It was a bizarre and abrupt way to die for a man who, by all accounts, went at life full-bore and was fit and agile from riding his bicycle everywhere he went. But as San Francisco police combed over the evidence Tuesday, investigators said this is what appears to have happened: Dr. Daniel J. Kliman, an Alameda physician and one of the Bay Area's foremost pro-Israel activists, stepped into an open elevator shaft by accident last week and died. His body was found Monday by workers inspecting an elevator in the historic, nine-story Sharon Building at 55 New Montgomery St.,...

NEW YORK - A time-lapse video of a man trapped in an elevator for 41 hours has become something of an Internet sensation after surveillance camera footage emerged after nearly a decade...

Tensions rise at space elevator challenge 21:40 22 October 2006 NewScientist.com news service Kelly Young, Las Cruces An emotionally charged, late-night competition to test the strength of tethers designed for use in space elevators ended with no one walking home with the $200,000 first prize on Saturday. Designs for future space elevators call for robotic platforms to carry payloads into space on 100,000-kilometre-long tethers. Proponents of the idea say the method would be cheaper than launching rockets, but the requisite technology still needs to be developed. So in 2005, NASA began sponsoring the Tether Challenge to spur breakthroughs in building...

An elevator attendant on duty in China. The elevator must be a big one, like a cargo elevator. You see a long stick on the front side of the right wall next to button panel. It is used by the attendant to poke at the buttons without standing up from the chair.

Katie Couric considers a new technology some might consider "uplifting." It's one idea that just makes you wonder: Why didn't they think of that sooner?

Is it possible to make a cable for a space elevator out of carbon nanotubes? Not anytime soon, if ever, says Nicola Pugno of the Polytechnic of Turin, Italy. Pugno's calculations show that inevitable defects in the nanotubes mean that such a cable simply wouldn't be strong enough. The idea of a space elevator was popularized in science fiction, where writers envisioned a 100,000-kilometre-long cable stretching straight up from the Earth's surface and fixed in a geosynchronous orbit. Payloads, or tourists, would simply ascend the cable into low-Earth orbit, eliminating the need for rocket launches.

WESTBORO— What some residents of Fountainhead Apartments thought was a pet’s urine in the elevators turned out to be that of one of their neighbors. Residents of the Route 9 apartment complex continually complained to management of smelling urine in the two elevators. After about 30 incidents over a four-month period, management contacted a crime prevention agency and arranged to have a hidden video camera installed in one of the elevators. Police said that within a month, the camera captured Alicio Marcio Camargo, 26, urinating in an elevator on four occasions. One of the incidents happened minutes before midnight on...

The Spaceward Foundation announces details for 2006 Space Elevator Challenge PRESS RELEASEDate Released: Wednesday, November 16, 2005Source: Spaceward Foundation Prize money to triple for 2006 Space Elevator competition. Following the success of the recent 2005 Space Elevator competition held at NASA's Ames Research Center, the Spaceward Foundation announced today the details for the 2006 event, to be held on August 4th in Mountain View California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. "The 2005 challenge was a great event for us" said Ben Shelef, founder of the Spaceward Foundation who is organizing the competitions, "and with 30 teams on the...

Two Queens cousins who set holiday ornaments ablaze Christmas night in the hallway of a Far Rockaway apartment building — killing a security guard — have a history of playing with fire, prosecutors said yesterday. Raymond James, 32, died in an elevator on Beach 59th Street after trying to haul away a garbage bin that allegedly was set on fire by the boys. The cousins — identified only as Derrick H. and Curtis H. — appeared in Queens Family Court, where prosecutors said they had a history of arson. City lawyer Lori Iskowitz said the boys "had been going...