[HN Gopher] The narrowest escalator in New York City
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The narrowest escalator in New York City
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 69 points
Date : 2025-04-06 18:31 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.doobybrain.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.doobybrain.com)
| EncomLab wrote:
| More impressed that it's a Westinghouse escalator - which means
| it's not been updated since at least 1989.
| masfuerte wrote:
| 10 Rockefeller Plaza was built in 1940 so the escalator could
| be original.
|
| The London Underground replaced its last wooden escalator only
| 11 years ago and that was more than 80 years old.
|
| (I should clarify: the treads were wooden but the mechanism was
| steel.)
| Grazester wrote:
| Like the ones at Macy's 34th Street Herald Sq NYC
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Wynyard Station in Sydney turned their wooden escalator into
| art, which I would was neat.
| https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/programs/transport-
| arts/int...
| jandrese wrote:
| I bet it would be outrageously expensive to replace. Escalators
| aren't cheap to begin with and this one is no doubt built to
| its own standard so anything you replace it with would have to
| be heavily customized to fit.
| throttlebody wrote:
| Escalators are often in their original state for the life of
| them, apart from basic maintenance and a few repairs. Terrible
| things to work on
| jmclnx wrote:
| Very cool.
|
| As a kid in Boston, a couple of Subway Stops and an interesting
| Escalator. They where a bit wider then this one, but had wooden
| "stairs". But the "stairs" were slanted downward. When wet, you
| had to be careful. I wish I had taken pictures of them.
|
| They were ripped out in the 70s. I wish they had kept one of them
| as an historical oddity.
|
| FWIW I have not been there for a while, maybe one I was not aware
| of still exists :)
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| There were wooden stairs at the old flagship G. Fox & Co
| department store in Hartford CT. I don't recall them being
| slanted, though.
| ahi wrote:
| Woah. The first comment gave me a wave of nostalgia I
| couldn't place. This must have been it. Couldn't have been
| older than 4 or 5 last time I was in G Fox.
| The-Bus wrote:
| There are still some wooden escalators inside the flagship
| Macy's store in Herald Square (Manhattan).
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| https://i.imgur.com/N0oMono.gif (I don't echo Calvin's
| sentiment, your comment just lined up so nicely with my memory
| of this comic that I had to share it)
| jmclnx wrote:
| Funny, and really, my comment had no point :)
| Hansenq wrote:
| Maintaining these escalators must cost a fortune, not only
| because it's an old model that probably doesn't exist anywhere
| else in the world, but also because the US elevator market is
| completely distinct from the rest of the international market.
| This leads to higher prices since parts can't be shared.
|
| https://morehousing.substack.com/p/elevators
| tialaramex wrote:
| Standardization is a huge benefit _if_ as here you can actually
| standardize so that things become interchangeable. e.g. I went
| out for an impromptu dinner yesterday, two different people had
| phones which were low, a friend had a power bank, everything
| speaks USB C so it all just works. I think one of them was an
| iPhone? I don 't remember the brand of power bank, it doesn't
| matter, everything uses USB C.
|
| It's not useful where "standardization" means either writing a
| document everybody agrees but nobody actually implements, or,
| the document just says do any of six things but each vendor
| chooses differently, or worst of all the document says it's
| basically dealer's choice so in practice the standard was
| worthless. In these cases the "standard" is just a thin barrier
| to entry, no real benefit to consumers since they can't swap
| supplier.
|
| This often means accepting that maybe the global standard isn't
| quite ideal for you in some sense, but must be enforced anyway.
| Telemakhos wrote:
| If the US escalator/elevator market were integrated with the
| global market, would there be a US escalator/elevator market,
| or would it have been offshored and the jobs lost?
| Symbiote wrote:
| Linked from that article, there's another article arguing
| that the US/Canada shouldn't adopt the European standard.
|
| They give some examples of differences, but it's not clear
| (as a non-expert) whether these are necessary in the US/CA,
| examples of regulatory capture, or irrelevant details.
| whall6 wrote:
| There's one almost as narrow in downtown Houston.
| executesorder66 wrote:
| TFA doesn't provide any measurements, so how did you compare
| them?
| unit149 wrote:
| 7th St/Metro Ctr. in LA has two escalators, one leading towards
| commercial district on the West end, the other unveils
| 1940-crutched Art Deco Design.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| Reminds me of a slot canyon in Anza Borrego that's called "fat
| man's misery"
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| There's a Fat Man's Misery passage in Mammoth Cave. I would
| imagine there's a lot of places named that.
|
| https://www.nps.gov/places/fat-man-s-misery-beneath-your-fee...
| kolektiv wrote:
| There's a lovely walk in the UK around Lingmoor Fell which
| has a famous narrow squeeze between a rock and a cliff face
| called Fat Man's Agony. There's a good photo about half way
| down this blog post:
| https://www.walkmyworld.com/posts/lingmoor-fell-side-pike
| donnachangstein wrote:
| Curious how this guy can positively ascertain this is indeed the
| narrowest escalator in NYC. I surmise there are many narrow
| escalators in such an old city which predates the ADA. Has he
| undertaken a quest to take a shit in every building lobby in NYC
| (with tape measure in tow) and in the process checks out the
| escalators?
| pelagicAustral wrote:
| Assuming you can actually take a shit for free, or otherwise,
| on every lobby in NY.
| donnachangstein wrote:
| I imagine it's strongly discouraged.
|
| But he mentions walking by a security guard, so he likely has
| some plan worked out beforehand.
|
| Maybe he slips the security guard $5 so he can use the john
| (and surreptitiously inspect the escalators).
| nradov wrote:
| Ironically some people take a shit on public transit
| escalators, which is one of the reasons they are often out of
| service.
|
| https://missionlocal.org/2018/05/whats-with-the-16th-street-...
| whalesalad wrote:
| I don't think I've ever used an active escalator in SF. They
| are always turned off.
| dylan604 wrote:
| An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs.
| You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order
| sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the
| convenience.
|
| Mitch Hedberg
| somat wrote:
| A good joke, I like it, but...
|
| Look up videos of escalators breaking, it is a bit
| horrifying. all that moving metal eating itself.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=escalator+br
| eak...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulnZGVZZLRA
|
| I assume, like elevators, quite a bit has to go wrong
| before things get that bad.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| The Rockefeller Center in general is such a vibe. I was able to
| see a Seth Meyers taping there a few years ago, and while I
| obviously enjoyed the show, the building itself is what made the
| more lasting impression on me-- all that black marble and gold
| trim, you can really feel the weight of a place that knows it's
| got some history to it.
| cj wrote:
| Saw a Jimmy Fallon taping there a couple years ago, and echo
| this sentiment! Highly recommend trying to get into a taping if
| visiting NYC, one of the cheapest fun (and free!) ways to spend
| an afternoon.
| Animats wrote:
| The USS Hornet, a WWII aircraft carrier set up as a museum ship
| in Oakland, has a very similar escalator.[1] It's a Westinghouse
| model, like the one in New York. You can visit and walk the
| escalator, but it hasn't worked in decades. Carriers had
| escalators to get many pilots in all their gear from the ready
| room to the flight deck, fast.
|
| [1] https://www.twz.com/12804/us-navy-aircraft-carriers-had-
| esca...
| quuxplusone wrote:
| Conspicuously missing from TFA: any measurement of the
| escalator's width.
|
| There's no shortage of single-file escalators in NYC. I wildly
| surmise they're seen as fancier than the two-person-wide kind
| associated with subway stations and malls.
|
| The Marriott Marquis in Times Square has two single-file
| escalators side by side -- presumably the height of decadent
| luxury. Video: https://youtu.be/35-2FAI2DKU
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I don't know if that's sarcasm or not, but that's the norm for
| shops in the uk (where shops are large enough to warrant
| escalators)
| kccqzy wrote:
| Even for the subway there are single-file escalators, like the
| one going down to 34th St Herald Square between 32nd and 33rd
| St.
| bsimpson wrote:
| Without measurements, I can easily think of two other
| contenders:
|
| - The Google employee escalator at Pier 57.
|
| - The escalator to leave Delancey-Essex station.
| rafram wrote:
| Port Authority is full of them -- every single platform, I
| think.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Are the narrow escalators retrofits? IE, were there originally
| stairs that were converted to escalators?
| eitally wrote:
| That's narrow! There's a not quite as narrow one in SF, in the
| Union Square Macy's. It's wider, but still not wide enough for
| two abreast.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t37Q7mVEtgo
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Why are the white borders to the left/right of the escalator so
| wide?
|
| Seems like an unnecessary amount of wasted space (that would
| allow for a wider escalator).
| dylan604 wrote:
| Because the escalator is so narrow, they had to fill the space
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Why not just make the escalator wider (normal width) - to not
| have so much wasted space.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| They were making a joke. (Indeed, why not just make it
| wider?)
|
| I would guess that space is housing some of the machinery
| but I'm not personally knowledgeable of the inner workings
| of escalators.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Because they bought the wrong one which was on sale, so no
| returns on items on sale. Sometimes, those DIY projects
| really get expensive with these mistakes, so you end up
| with odd installs.
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