Pacific Coast Elevator was a major manufacturer in the 1930’s and beyond. It was purchased in 1946 by Montgomery Elevator Company. It’s not clear whether the products that PECO manufactured continued on or if Montgomery started to phase the components out. If anyone has additional information to share on this please do so in the comments section below.

Thanks again to tractionelevator over on www.youtube.com for sharing this video.  The elevator looks to be original to when the building was built.

Thanks to Tommy Yates who was nice enough to contact Jim over at C.J. Anderson asking how much the car switch that he purchased might be worth.  What’s great is that the history that Tommy has on where this car switch came from.

This Otis car switch was pulled out of the Nissen Building in Winston-Salem, NC when they did a remodeling back in the 1970’s. Some other great information that Tommy had to share was that he remembers going into this building many times during the 50’s and 60’s as his dad’s office was on the 3rd floor.  The elevator doors were brass and polished almost daily, also there was a fold down seat in the car for the operator.  The lobby had this beautiful pink marble wainscoating that sadly was torn out during the remodeling of the bldg., my dad acquired enough of this to cover every table top in the house at the time.

These kinds of photographs and stories are what this website is all about. Thank you so much Tommy for sharing your photographs and story. Enjoy the photos and additional information on the Nissen Building.

Wikipedia Entry on the Nissen Building

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissen_Building

Original E-mail: 

Hello:  Maybe you can help me.  I have purchased 4 of what I think are elevator call button face plates.  I found these at the estate sale for the old president of the State National Bank in Corsicana Tx.  The lobby was remodeled about 20 years ago and I think he may have wanted to keep these as mementos.   I say they are elevator plates, but they may have been for wall lights, door knobs.  They spared no expense when the bank was built in the 1920’s.  I am sure these are that old.  I would really like to know if these did come from the elevator.  I would really appreciate it if you have the time and can reply.  I have included a picture of our old bank also. 
Thank You, Anita

Response from Elevator Preservation: 

Hi Anita! Nice to hear from you! The plates you have are exceptional and the history you have on where they came from is even more unique. Unfortunately they are not elevator call button plates and are most likely door escutcheon plates.

Push buttons, and the holes they protruded from would have had smaller holes that they would have stuck through. Closer to 5/8″ or 3/4″, which was the standard of that time period.  Another item that is noticeable is that there are no mounting holes in the plate, top and bottom, that screws would hold the plate to the electrical box. Also there are four holes around the hole that would indicate another trim ring would be mounted on top and then a door knob on top of that.

Thank you so much for contacting us. Keep the history with the pieces along with the photographs. That in itself makes the plates more valuable!
Tom Sybert
ElevatorPreservation.com

Elevator fixtures are the interface between man and machine. They are means of communication and subject to the design of their époque. Most of the significant and important improvements relating to elevators have been made to elevator controls – an efficient elevator control system determines to a large extend whether an installation can efficiently handle the building’s vertical traffic.

I think it is worthwhile to take a closer look at the elevator-components that visualize the development of elevator controls best: all the means of signaling and indicating the floors and their corresponding calls as well as the buttons, handles and switches for actually maneuvering the elevator-car.

There is no sub sequential timeline to follow; the use of many types of controls has been overlapping over decades. I can’t tell you a story with a clear path – systems were to different and so was elevator technologies between countries even within Europe. My preferred way to share a bit of my knowledge collected over the last 20 years of gathering information is to give a spotlight on interesting findings. I will do that by placing a “Fixture Of The Week” on elevatorpreservation.com each Friday – depending on my availability.

Fixture Of The Week, March 25^th, 2010

The Hydraulic Position Indicator By Officina Meccanica Ing. A. Stigler, Milano (Italy)

Most of us have seen older elevators with mechanically operated position-indicators where a pointer would sweep across a round- or shell-shaped scale with numbers. Some of us have seen mechanical position-indicators with a vertical type scale – but did anyone see a hydraulic position indicator?

Honestly, I haven’t seen one in real life too. All I know is that there has been a bunch of them in operation throughout Europe. They have been developed by the very famous Italian elevator-company of Augusto Stigler from Milano – one of Europe’s most important elevator-companies before World War II.

This type of indicator featured brass or wooden boxes next to each entrance of the elevator. Each box was equipped with a glass-tube, clearly visible by people waiting for the elevator to arrive. The floor numbers were marked on a scale next to the glass-pipe and a round plug, shaped like a miniature of the elevator-car, was placed in the glass-tube.

While the box was decoratively designed and placed outside the elevator shaft, the major part of the mechanism was placed inside the elevator-shaft. A small brass-tube was lead from the bottom of the glass-pipe through the wall to the inside of the shaft. From there, a flexible rubber-pipe was connected to a small reservoir made of brass. The reservoir was mounted to a rod or small cable leading from the top to the bottom of the shaft.

The rod or small rope that would carry all the reservoirs – each indicator at each floor has its own – would move up and down as the elevator car would move. This is very similar to an indicator-rope of a mechanical indicator-system; instead of making pointers move, Stigler’s hydraulic indicator lifts and lowers the reservoirs at the floors. Now that each of the reservoirs is connected to the glass-pipe next to the entrance via a rubber-hose, the trick is this:

If filled with water, the level of fluid will be the same in the glass-pipe as it is in the reservoir. The plug in the glass-pipe is very loose and it swims on the surface of the water. Thereby, it symbolizes the cabin. As soon as the elevator moves, the reservoirs are moved in the same direction and through the connection to the glass-pipe, the level of fluid would change accordingly and thereby cause the little swimming cab to ascend or descend.

The calibration of the indicator can simply be done by adding or draining water from the reservoirs.

Was this system a smart idea? Yes and no, I would say. To judge the quality of this invention, you have to consider the time when it was made. Adding a little bit of water every other week was no issue because personnel were available and dedicated to operate the elevator anyway. My concern would be more with calcium-deposits on the glass and with greenish alga in the water. This might be solved with using distillated water; the evaporation might be eased with a layer of oil on top of the water in the reservoir.

I don’t believe that I could find a single one in operation today – no-one would pay maintenance and repair for it. What I believe is that there are still some of these indicators, maybe covered by several layers of paint, being inoperative over decades. Also, there might be derelict elevators still having a hydraulic indicator. I’d love to have one for restoration for the technical collection. If anybody of you should ever come across one, be sure you let me know!

JLD

Images taken from “Der Aufzugbau” by Hugo Bethmann, Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig, 1913

-Message to elevatorpreservation-

Currently I’m behind another story.

You probably heard that Otis claims to have installed the first passenger-elevator ever to the Eder V. Haughwout-Building in 488-492 Broadway, Soho, NYC. This happened in 1857 – later in 1892, Alonzo B. See installed another elevator to the same building – guess what: I’ve heard that this one is still in working order while the Otis has been removed in the 19th century already. (Here, Wikipedia is wrong.)

Also, I’ve heard that it is worth a visit. I can’t confirm but this got my attention. Could you try to use your tools to make a call for information? Maybe we may even find somebody who lives or works close – it should be possible to try to get access and ideally make some photographs. The building doesn’t look like a highly secured one; there is a Staples-market in the first floor.

I think this elevator is of interest for elevator-historians just because it survived while Otis’ got lost – you must know that See and Otis had some nice fights. See originally was employed with Otis but later opened his own business.

I have included a link to wikipedia – this is just for the picture of the building. Please ignore what somebody wrote about the elevator – this is, as said before, wrong.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._V._Haughwout_Building

May 25th, 2010:

It looks like this story can be confirmed by the seller of the historic elevator-cabin (see post below): after re-visiting the old elevator, he confirmed that A. B. See is the manufacturer. The difference from my expectation is that what I see on the photographs doesn’t seem to be an elevator in “working order” – but at least, it may have been in operation until they shut it down maybe just a few years ago.

The elevator currently being removed from the Haughwout thereby is not necessarily a piece of American history like the 1857 Otis would have been. However, it is somewhat meaningfull to the story of A. B. See and the competition he had with the Otis Elevator Company.

I give the seller a lot of credit for putting such a high price tag on it. After all it’s more than just wood cab walls, its a piece of American History.

The actual listing is below. 

Antique Otis Elevator Cab.  Machined East Lake Style.  First commercial elevator in NYC.  Created as a cabinet in approximately 1825, the cab has pretty wood paneling and mirrors within and detail without.  48 x 67 inches.  The cab, a historically and architecturally significant piece of American History, will be gently removed from The Haughwout Building in NYC. The elevator cab was constructed as a piece of custom millwork unlike contemporary cabs that are constructed in individual panels.

I just wish there were more photos to look at.

Have some information on how these might have worked? Comment below!

If only this pin could talk, the stories it might tell.

Description of Item: Pre 1954 Studebaker Corporation Employees Badge – Elevator Operator. No 159. “Safety First” “South Bend, Ind”. Excellent condition. Original pin

Along the photos Jack added the following history behind it.

The background for this unique piece was my Dad worked at Lietelt elevator works in Grand Rapids Michigan from 1959 until 1960 building the controllers for Montgomery Elevator. One day the construction Super talked him into going to work for them.

Dave Otten gave me, Jack Jr.,  the fixture in 1996 to give to my dad.  My Dad built the lamp in 1998. When my dad past away in 1999 my mother gave it to me to keep in the family. Underneath it is my dad’s original gang box that Montgomery gave him to work out of. I remember as a kid the thing always being in our garage somewhere piled high with junk. My dad made it into a table as you see there around the same time as the lamp.

All I can say is very cool!  I hope this piece stays in the Bultman family but if you’re ever looking for another home for it please let us know.

I am very interested in finding any Edwardian (c1900-1915) era Otis Elevator
Company elevators that are still in working order. I am particularly
interested in any that are in the UK, or on New York, Washington or Chicago.
Do you know of any that might fir the bill?

Best wishes,

Ben
Ben Samuel
Associate Producer
Twenty Twenty Television

BenSamuel@twentytwenty.tv