Everyone has ups and downs at work. Andrew Lounsbury’s are intentional. For 39 years, he’s been an elevator operator at the Hotel del Coronado, a throwback job in a throwback place. The hotel dates to 1888, and so does the elevator. The technology was so new that the hotel included it among the advertised amenities, boasting that the elevator was “rendering the climbing of stairs unnecessary.” Back then, a human was required to open the metal gates and operate the handle that told the elevator where to go and when to stop. Over time, the technology improved, and now almost all of the 900,000 elevators in the United States are automated. Human operators have gone the way of buggy whips and horse carriages, seen mostly in period TV shows and movies. The average American living or working in a multi-story building rides an elevator four times a day and hardly pays the conveyance any mind, unless it breaks down. Such is modern life. The Hotel Del, though, is modern in moderation. It sits proudly in earlier times, and the gilded, caged elevator in the lobby is considered part of the ambiance. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/lifestyle/people/sd-me-elevator-operator-20181218-story.html
Everyone has ups and downs at work. Andrew Lounsbury’s are intentional.
For 39 years, he’s been an elevator operator at the Hotel del Coronado, a throwback job in a throwback place.
The hotel dates to 1888, and so does the elevator. The technology was so new that the hotel included it among the advertised amenities, boasting that the elevator was “rendering the climbing of stairs unnecessary.”
Back then, a human was required to open the metal gates and operate the handle that told the elevator where to go and when to stop.
Over time, the technology improved, and now almost all of the 900,000 elevators in the United States are automated. Human operators have gone the way of buggy whips and horse carriages, seen mostly in period TV shows and movies.
The average American living or working in a multi-story building rides an elevator four times a day and hardly pays the conveyance any mind, unless it breaks down. Such is modern life.
The Hotel Del, though, is modern in moderation. It sits proudly in earlier times, and the gilded, caged elevator in the lobby is considered part of the ambiance.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/lifestyle/people/sd-me-elevator-operator-20181218-story.html