Ok, it's Luton now... Matt's tour of Luton town centre lifts

"Cheapside, Bute Street, Arndale, Market Car Park, Library Car Park" brings back my memories of Luton! I haven't been here for about 20 years. It was in Luton where I saw my first ever lift motor room - it was in the Bus Station car park. The motor room door used to be wooden with a broken glass panel in it, excellent view of the machinery. Here is that car park being demolished in 2008!!... (crossed out in red on map in video)
htt p://w ww .flickr. c om/pho tos/rowanbank/2433080987 (remove spaces)

Luton town centre is much as it was before, reminds me a bit of Bracknell: pigeons, concrete structures, and more pigeons! I hope this isn't too unfair, but when I walked up and down the high street there were areas where only tramps and persons who 'had nothing else to do' were. One loud mouthed 'serious attitude problem' woman was shouting at someone on her mobile for everyone to hear. It's quite an eery place. And those damn pigeons are everywhere, kids were even fighting them!!

Now to the lifts. The lift in the video have been here since the shopping centre opened in 1972. They have been modernised a couple of times since then, although the lift cars and doors look original.

I start off with the central lifts inside the arndale centre. Love 'the christmas tree' arrows for each lift, shame they couldn't have been configured to be more useful... for example, when I am on the top floor I really don't need to know that the lifts are going down, away from me! ...and I don't really need TWO arrows to tell me the lift has already left!!

After this, right down the end is another part of the shopping centre. This car park is joined onto the main car park. This is the 'Market' car park. These used to be completely different 'simple' lifts down this end, but there are TWO sets of independantly standing lift blocks within 50 metres of each other!? Strange waste of space.

Down the other end of the car park is the Bute Street lifts, although these are the same as the centre ones.

Part 2 follows...

Category:

Education

Tags:

• elevator
• elevators
• lift
• motor
• room
• machinery
• kone
• otis
• winda
• shopping
• centre
• luton
• Aufzug

[Meanmanmartin2007]

I would be very interested in finding out, does anybody know of any car parks which have lift access only? Or does this sort of thing not usually happen?

[mrmattandmrchay]

Yes, here in High Wycombe! The ex-sainsbury's car park (now demolished) only had lifts from sainsbury to the car park. There were stairs, but you had to walk outside and walk round the side or to the other end.

The best video that showed this was:

watch?v=Oqi0WX1aYCA

see 5:10

Read my response to GaryReggae.

These lifts go straight down into Sainsburys. Also see the 'tribute to kayleigh lifts' which shows these before they were knocked down.

[Meanmanmartin2007]

Out of interest, when you went down the stairs in the first car park, were you on the top floor?

Secondly, how do you get to the floors in between 5 and 8?

[mrmattandmrchay]

Yep, I was on the top floor (5th). Don't think there is a floor higher than 5 in this place.

By the way, those lifts at 3:50 used to have a light bulb panel with orange neon lights to indicate where the lift was.

[leethomas84]

Excellent video! Nice so see the (maybe) orginal buttons in the cheapside/bute lifts. Haven't seen a COP like that for a while. Shame to see more generic modernized COP's though, can't they use some more interesting button designs?

Had to laugh at the people who pressed both buttons to call the lift. This annoys me in busy lifts, where people go down before going up, taking up lift capacity but not really saving any time.

[mrmattandmrchay]

Makes you wonder, if they don't know how to call a lift (pressing the correct button), how are they going to drive their car from the car park back home!?

Suppose we will all get to this age, then they'll be calling 'US 'old gits!!

[clubpenguiniscp]

arndale mall.gosh.wat a silly vidio.

[LaptopMad777]

LOL 2:38 That Chime Is Awful!!! I Have To Put Up With It When I Have To Go To Unison With My Nanna. Ugg Horrible

[MrUNIXman]

@Meanmanmartin2007 The Escalator either goes out on to Silver Street or Church Street depends what end the centre it was at. Goes from Street to the Arndale Centre itself

[Meanmanmartin2007]

Can you explain, where does that escalator in the arndale car park go to?

[Meanmanmartin2007]

Thanks for your help

[Meanmanmartin2007]

Thanks for explaining

[leethomas84]

A young couple did this last week while I was at the Manchester Arndale (Former sister mall to the Luton one, must be something in the name maybe). They boarded the lift at Upper Mall level, pressed Lower Mall, then travelled with me all the way up to level 13, and complained about the lift taking too long too!! I just had to laugh.

[Meanmanmartin2007]

Who was that person saying about hating the lifts? Is it someone whos going to become an enthusiast in their later life?