I saw a 1920s elevator in a Chicago hotel and it flipped my thinking on old parts

I was in Chicago last month for a family thing and stayed at this old hotel downtown. They had this one elevator still running from the 1920s, original Otis machine room unit. The super let me take a peek in the machine room, which was wild. The thing that got me was the governor rope. It was this thick, braided cotton line, looked almost like a ship's rope, not the steel cable we all use now. I always thought old stuff was just worse, you know, less safe, ready to fail. But seeing how clean the sheaves were, how the rope had worn in but not worn out over a literal century, it made me stop. I've been quick to say 'needs a full modern replacement' on jobs with pre-war gear. Now I'm wondering how much of that is just bias against old tech versus actual risk. Has anyone else worked on a system that old and been surprised by what held up?

3 comments

3 Comments

paulperry2mo ago

Did my buddy's old boiler ever surprise you?

paige_martin1mo ago

You know what, it did surprise me, but in a way that's actually pretty common (not to ramble). It's like how sometimes the most beat-up looking stuff just works forever while some fancy new thing breaks right away. That old boiler is just another reminder that reliability often hides in the ugliest packages, you know?

danielwhite2mo ago

Ever see something so solid it makes you question everything, like paulperry's boiler story?