Vintage manual drive Otis elevators at 80 Centre Street

We are at the New York Civil Court Division of State Supreme Court at 80 Centre Street, where I have the rare opportunity to do some work inside one of the side offices, thanks to my line of work. What I do is not important. What is important is the huge bank of 6, count them, SIX manual drive Otis passenger elevators, all rated for 3500 pounds, all with a call system, an old level mechanism, manual crank, and floor selector buttons. It even has a great sounding floor arrival bell. We go from the 3rd floor to the 1st floor, pick up passengers, and head back to the 3rd floor. In the second video, we are in one of the two freight elevators. These two are even more vintage, with an even more interesting hand crank, also rated for 3500 pounds, with a different floor call indicator, with a light column on the left side of the numbers for those requesting to go down, and a light column to the right of the numbers for those who wish to go up. The doors and frames are made by Dahlstrom. Also, the crank has a beautiful brass finish with a huge Otis globe insignia as well as a D on the left for down and a U on the right for up, and whichever way you rotate the crank is the direction you go. The elevator goes fast at full tilt and slows down as you ease up on the crank. It does not self level. Enjoy the sight of all of these elevators. I would personally like to thank DCAS for giving me permission to film inside of their building, as this place is not otherwise open to the public. Both elevators are cable driven from a topside motor. If you would like to see a photo of the hand crank of the freight elevator, message me, and I would be more than happy to send you the photo. If you have any questions about the video, feel free to message me. Comments are welcome. The video was taken on January 10th, 2012.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• NY
• NYC
• NYS
• DCAS
• Department
• of
• Citywide
• Administrative
• Services
• New
• York
• City
• State
• Supreme
• Court
• Civil
• Division
• 80
• Centre
• Street
• Downtown
• Manhattan
• vintage
• Otis
• passenger
• and
• freight
• elevator
• elevators
• manual
• drive
• manually
• driven
• hand
• crank
• 3500
• pound
• capacity
• big
• brass
• control
• globe
• coin
• scissors
• gate
• double
• door
• floor
• bell
• indicator
• indicators
• lights
• up
• cool
• buzz
• buzzer
• for
• call
• system
• request
• button
• buttons
• down
• imprints
• cable
• topside
• motor
• Dahlstrom
• doors
• frame
• frames

[mrmattandmrchay]

Can't believe you guys still have these vintage elevators still running. Facinating stuff! An 6 manual elevators require 6 operators to be employed. Would love to see these! (the lifts, not the lift operators haha!)

[mschafe132]

Wow! Its amazing to think in 2012 there are still awesome buildings out there like this. I think its time to move to NYC.

[elevatortraction]

Amazing elevators!!!

[ElevaTube]

Very similar to the ones in the Commerce Building in Worcester.

[suzzex]

What beauties!