Preville on Politics

The secret lives of elevators

Posted on April 17, 2008 by Philip Preville

Attention all urban planning geeks and infrastructure fetishists: you must read this fabulous New Yorker piece about elevators by Nick Paumgarten right now. The story begins by pointing out one of the great secrets-beneath-our-noses of urban living: the modern city owes its existence not to cars or computers, but to elevators. The story will also make you cry. Might sound improbable to some of you, but those of us with a passion for bricks and mortar always knew infrastructure could do that.

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Mark Dowling April 17, 2008 at 11:01 a.m.

If I ruled the TTC, I'd scrap all the escalators which are constantly broken down and accelerate installing twin elevators at all stations (such as the elevator-less $5m Museum).

At a stroke you would make mobile Torontonians fitter, remove a source of user annoyance (it's broken/people won't stand right/people won't clear the exit smartly causing congestion for those behind them) and make the system more accessible both for the mobility-impaired and people with strollers, suitcases, document trolleys and so on.


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Philip Preville

Veteran freelance writer Philip Preville lived much of his life in Montreal and Edmonton before he was lured, like so many Torontonians before him, by the promise of more work and a better living. A National Magazine Award winner and former Canadian Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, Preville writes Toronto Life’s politics column. He lives with his wife and one-year-old son in Riverdale, just close enough to the Don Valley Parkway that he can hear it when he steps outside his house—but just far enough away that it doesn’t keep him awake at night. On his office wall hangs a 1938–39 press pass belonging to his grandfather, Elias Gannon, who wrote for the Montreal Star.


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