The Real Reason Behind Mirrors in Elevators
In 1971, the first commercial elevators were introduced by Otis Elevators to the World Trade Center in Manhattan. A major issue behind the building height is the elevators — more elevators are needed to service the building, which requires more space. Otis introduced the state of the art elevator system with two sky lobbies. The sky lobbies enabled residents to switch from a larger express elevator to a local elevator that reached each floor in a section. This system was inspired from the local-express NYC subway system. All together, the World Trade Center had 95 elevators in total; ten travelled directly from the ground floor to the top.
Residents and office staff were so excited to get to and from their apartments and office. Newspapers and billboards were put up regarding the tallest building in the world with these amazing machines they call elevators that took people up and down effortlessly. In a matter of two months, all this hype quickly began to die down. The management office of the WTC started to get piled up with complaints. It took over an hour to walk up and down the stairs of the WTC. Even with the brilliant minds of a plethora of engineers from Otis and the state of the art technology, people were complaining it took about an hour to go up and down the WTC via these brand new elevators.
The traffic outside the management office grew so unbearable that the management staff had no choice but to bring the issue up with the board. One month of board meetings passed and there was still no solution to the elevator delays. Residents were moving out. Offices were moving out. The issue became out of control. The board had no choice, but to call Otis Elevators President and engineers to query them.
We spent millions of dollars on this state of the art commercial elevator and it’s still taking almost the same amount of time as it takes to walk up and down by foot.
The board, Otis Elevators President and engineers sat in a 5–hour long meeting trying to come up with a long term solution for the slow elevators. They came up with absolutely nothing. Out of frustration Otis Elevators President stood up and said. “Hey! Why don’t we put mirrors?” Because of the fact that it’s already the 6th hour of the meeting, no one had energy left and just agreed with him. Well guess what? The complaints stopped coming in. Ladies were putting on their makeup in the elevators. Gents were doing their ties in the elevators. Kids were playing with their reflections in the elevators.
The mirrors obviously did not solve the issue with the elevator speeds, however, it stopped complaints from coming in. Within a few years Otis had some time to introduce new high speed elevators (with mirrors obviously) and kept the same system design concept that had initially been used to design the previous elevators.
Of course, today other reasons for mirrors in the elevator relate to both safety and psychology.
Well there you have it ladies and gents, we now know why we have mirrors in elevators.
