Everything you ever wanted to know about elevators is now
collected in
one magazine article, which includes one of the best arguments
against high rise public housing projects I’ve ever read:
Loading up an empty elevator car with discarded
Christmas trees, pressing the button for the top floor, then
throwing in a match, so that by the time the car reaches the top it
is ablaze with heat so intense that the alloy (called “babbitt”)
connecting the cables to the car melts, and the car, a fireball
now, plunges into the pit: this practice, apparently popular in New
York City housing projects, is inadvisable.
Terrifying if true, though I can’t help but suspect that the word
“apparently” was inserted by an exasperated member of the
fact-checking staff.