Just realized the freight elevator in my 1928 building has a hand crank for when the power dies, and I got to use it

Ben Campbell · 2026-09-22T08:05:05.97129+00:00

I live in an old brick building in St. Paul that went up in 1928, and the freight elevator still runs on the original DC motor. Two days ago the power cut out around 4pm while I was hauling up a couch, and the building super showed me the emergency hand crank bolted behind a little brass door in the cab. It took us about 12 minutes of steady cranking to lift that car one floor, roughly 40 turns of the handle per floor, and I was sweating through my shirt by the top. The super said the crank has been used maybe 6 times in his 22 years here, mostly during the big ice storm in 2013. What got me is that nearly every old elevator in this city has one of these cranks hidden somewhere, and almost nobody who rides them knows it is there. I have started asking around and my neighbor on the fourth floor claims the one in her office building was welded shut in the 90s. Does anyone else know how to spot these things, or is there a go to sign that hints an elevator has a manual backup?

🐿️Pinecone Attack

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Just realized the freight elevator in my 1928 building has a hand crank for when the power dies, and I got to use it | Ask a Weird Expert - Pinecone Attack