One thing that New York City has a lot of that Andalusia doesn’t, is elevators.

I personally don’t trust elevators.  

There are basically three kinds of elevators in New York City: old; new; and scary.

When I moved to New Yawk, the first thing the Realtor asked me was if I wanted an elevator in my building–she said on average that they cost an extra $400 per month. I said, “Do what?” Incidentally, “Do what?” is not a recognized expression in New Yawk City, so I finally said I’d take the stairs.

Thus, The Andalusia Star News New York City Bureau is a five-story climb. Who needs a stairmaster when you’re broke and living in New Yawk?

The elevator at my office falls under the “new” category. It’s fancy and lined with mirrors and chrome. It looks like a small version of a scientific lab.

When I first came to New York City, I was very careful not to walk around looking up at the skyscrapers. My Aunt Pat advised me not to tell anybody what time it was if asked on the street. My mother warned me not to eat any lox and cream cheese. And my grandmother said, “Morgan, you just remember that some Yankee woman is eating off your great-great grandmother’s china,” (she’s still bitter about the war). Now I’ve got some advice about New Yawk City:

Don’t say anything about the swift elevators up here.

Now, I’d been in some elevators in Alabama. There was a pretty good one at the bank in Birmingham. There was one in the Shehan building on the square. There was even one that ran right up the behind of Vulcan.

But even after riding in all those Alabama elevators, I wasn’t prepared for my first high-powered NYC elevator ride. I was going to the 36th floor with my boss and I immediately knew something was different when I stepped in the box on a string. There were about 20 of us in there: we looked like the Brady Bunch in the glove compartment of a Yugo. A couple of people kept trying to get on the elevator while everyone inside kept hitting the “door close” button. This caused considerable agitation on both sides of the closing door.

Finally, once the doors closed and all the appropriate buttons had been pushed and such, the elevator took off at a velocity that would have impressed Neil Armstrong. Your man in New Yawk was squashed like cold grits. I developed jowls like Richard Nixon. I thought my pants were going to exert too much pressure on my suspenders and cause an accident. I could picture the headlines in The Star News: “ANDALUSIA BOY’S SUSPENDERS GO AWRY IN FREAK ELEVATOR ACCIDENT, MAIM 19 NEW YORKERS.”

So when the elevator came to a quick stop on 36, I was confused. “Whee. Man. We here already?” I asked my new boss. Everyone in the elevator was wearing sunglasses. I could see the “oh dear” expression of my new employer reflected back through 38 different lenses.
“Yes, we’re here,” she said.

“Well I am sure glad, ’cause that fool elevator made me dizzy,” I said with a big, friendly Alabama smile.

This didn’t get quite the laugh I expected it to.

But I came to appreciate the fancy elevators when I started riding in some of New York’s other vertical vehicles.

In an elevator on the West Side, I feel like I’m being imprisoned every time I get on board. The elevator man looks like a fellow who might have once been named “Buzz.” Sadly Buzz is about 75 years old and wears what looks like the uniform of an ousted third-world country dictator. Buzz has delayed more lift-offs than NASA in his 42 years of running various elevators. He opens and closes the gates with panache. My friend has trained Buzz to say, “Hats, dresses, ladies’ intimates,” when the elevator arrives at his floor. I guess if you pay an extra $400 a month, you can ask for little perks like that.

But the worst elevator in New York is in The Empire State Building. That’s right, the big one. The Empire State Building was built during the Great Depression–a remarkable achievement of American ingenuity and perseverance. But I think they had to skimp somewhere on that sucker. And you know where? That’s right, the elevators.

The elevators are made by Otis. Otis? Is this a name that says “safety” to you? Wasn’t Otis the drunk on The Andy Griffith Show? Otis sounds like a Mississippi governor, not an elevator engineer.

So in the mighty Empire State Building, I paid five bucks to ride to the top in an Otis. We stopped prematurely around the 73 floor. And there we sat. Four two hours. Dangling by a cord. By a veritable thread. By the 64 year-old design of Mr. Otis. The other tourists were from Kansas or somewhere like that and got nervous.

One man said that we should just crawl out the top of the elevator. I asked him if he’d been eating paint chips lately.

Fortunately, before the Kansasian got carried away and tried to shimmy down the elevator shaft, the Otis got on its not-so-sure-footed way and delivered us to the top. I walked back down the 100+ flights of stairs. Sure, it took three weeks, but I’ve been practicing at home, remember.

So Andalusia, watch out for those elevators–I wouldn’t want you to ever have to say, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”