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Comment by delichon | Hacker News Reader

Somewhere someone is probably still working as an elevator operator too. Like when I was a kid I had a job shoveling coal into a boiler. And someone is still manufacturing buggy whips. The future is unevenly distributed. Call Bunny Watson and ask her, she'll confirm.

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Elevator operators are pretty common at arena events. I think to help ensure the elevators aren't under or overloaded.

Of course, observation towers tend to have elevator operators too.

I think the GP is referring to manually operated elevators, in which a human inside the elevator pulls a lever to tell the elevator when to move. When I was a kid, my dad worked in a building with a semi-automated elevator that had floor buttons and an automatic return to the ground floor, but still had the lever. There was an operator inside on weekdays, but if you came in on the weekend you had to operate the elevator yourself.

I think it was in Lima, not many years ago (6? 8?) that I saw in a federal building the elevators were manually operated. They had physically disabled persons in charge of them, so I guess it was a way of integrating some of those jobs.

Still quite common in NYC. There’s a bit of a social distinction between doorman buildings and elevator-man buildings, and some people prefer the latter.

I worked at a building in San Francisco (589 Howard St) that still was fully manual. You controlled when the elevator stopped, lifted the gate by yourself to get out, the whole works.

There was a safety mechanism where, IIRC, the gate on one of the floors wasn't closed, none of the other floors could call the elevator, so it was a bit of a pain. Even though we were on the top floor, it was pretty rare for anyone to use it.

As recently as five years ago, the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Ave. in Chicago employed elevator operators. It probably still does.

They’re being replaced.

https://wgntv.com/news/cover-story/fine-arts-building-manual...

Here's a song inspired by a real elevator operator that works an elevator at the Chicago House of Blues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiP0FpY88E4

The song is naturally called Elevator Operator.

There's probably some high bureaucracy workplace somewhere where only certain people are allowed to use the freight elevator but it needs to be used by others so much they just station someone who can use it there.

There are still elevators that you need to be certified to use like mine elevators, and other form of commercial/construction devices so you could certainly see an elevator operator existing in one of those places.

I know of an elevator that is also a ticketed access point to a stadium so the elevator operator also scans tickets and gives out wristbands. Very nice for wheeled accessibility.

They still exist in certain NYC buildings

Either cause the elevator is super old or because union contracts require them.

Then there are hospitals I’ve been in that have them.

I visited a shopping mall in India in 2019 that still employed elevator operators.

I was hoping for a Desk Set reference; thank you.

elevator operators are still in use in NYC

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