Elevator or Hellevator? Maybe Take the Stairs

"172.365 - Time To Go Home," courtesy of Seattlest Flickr Pool member Slightlynorth

Hellevators are like bug zappers, you never notice them until something gets fried.

Usually the byproduct of old engineering and stingy property management, a mean elevator has entered everyone’s lives at some point. The truly unfortunate have to work or live with one. There’s no escaping the feeling of mistrust every time you enter it, the anxiety that builds when it jerks randomly as you suddenly realize you need to pee. We’ve heard about people being forced to turn their stuck elevator into a shared bathroom space while waiting for help and don’t envy them in the least.

Maybe economic hardships are exposing the cheapness of certain property managers at old apartments and offices throughout our neighborhood, but the pervasiveness of shady elevators has struck us several times recently.

We work in a building apparently haunted by phantoms that send the elevators between the second and fifth floors at random, as people stand baffled in the lobby waiting for no one to eventually get off. We used to live where there were two elevators that never simultaneously functioned once in four years. If A was running B was broke, and occasionally one would simply devour passengers for hours at a time before the fire department could save the day.

On weekends when the Seattle Mystery Tour Van pulled in front, we wondered if the guide was regaling horrified tourists with stories of our man-eating elevator. After all, what’s scarier: glimpsing a ghost for half a second or being stuck in a tiny elevator with your creepy neighbor for a couple hours? We’d take the ghost any day.

Know a hellevator others need to look out for? Let us know.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@seattlest.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John in Miscellaneous on July 2, 2009 1:00 PM

Comments [rss]

amore

The most striking elevator I´ve ever seen is in the main building of Germany´s Ministry of the Interior: a never-stopping kind of hoist (no doors at all!) where you have to be fit and jump to get on it, being aware as well of not remaining trapped with your clothes or legs!

As for ghosts.. there was a video on youtube of a ghost in an elevator in china some time ago, which cause scandal and fear on the Net…remember? Well, just found out it´s one of the scenes of another ghost-elevator movie: “the eye” ah ah ah

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6eXUTyZ_Jc

http://www.edarling.it/

Matt the Engineer

You must watch The Lift, an 80's horror movie about an elevator that kills people. Great stuff.

jwhieger

Nothing is worse than perfectly healthy people who live on the second floor of a tall building and refuse to take the stairs.

Joe G

The hellevator at the Oxford Apartments on First and Stewart is something else. It's the slowest thing on the planet. Thankfully i only live on the third floor, so taking the stairs is easy.

bilco

For the record - it's only 25 stories tall.

MvB

Oh, I read that wrong. I saw "Martin Selig" and went straight to the Columbia (or whatever they're calling it now) Tower. Drive-by commenting! The shame.

bilco

My most-hated elevator of all time is easy - the elevator bank in Martin Selig's piece o'crap Darth Vader building at 4th and Blanchard, directly across from Cinerama.

I worked there for a while just prior to WTO, and the vators were legendary. They'd often stop 'n' drop, so you had to step up 6 inches or so to get out of the elevator. When I had to return to the building a few years ago to work for a crap startup (the only folks who will inhabit this building these days, it seems), I was dreading the elevator bank.

Sure enough, it had only gotten worse. Everyone in the car, each time it dropped, had the same sigh of desperation.

MvB

You'd think with a building that tall they'd put a little extra effort into the elevating system. Don't want to think about how far up the 70th floor is every time you press the button.