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Amazing Westinghouse Selectomatic elevators @ the Historic Metro Tower Lubbock TX (handycam) — 25 Comments

  1. +carryclass Actually the building is very vacant because on the 19th floor
    there are at least 10 to 15 offices and only 1 or 2 are actually being
    used.

  2. DieselDucy you just combined my two favorite things…vintage elevators and
    Tornado facts and history

  3. Going to go see these myself as well as the old hotel settles hope these
    are still there and the settles is 15 floors built in 1930 they replaced
    the elevators but a lot of the buildings decor were restored by hand so
    gotta do a hotel tour there

  4. Went there today they are GONE 2 cars remain but they are off limits being
    shut down and they have tacked up the lobby with a security desk that looks
    modern and plain and modern furniture and the walls are being left to decay

  5. Security won’t let you ride any of them anymore I saw the new car the right
    one is done the other 3 are in process they chose the cheapest vandal
    resistant fixtures you can buy and won’t let you go anywhere but up to the
    doors and in the lobby paint is peeling walls are cracking building is in
    sorrowful state

  6. Well… seems neither Schindler nor OTIS can maintain old elevators. If
    Schindler does, they fall apart. If OTIS does, their machine rooms are
    turned into museums.

  7. Andrew, There is a shuttle elevator at the Meadow Park Tower from 15 that
    went to 16 and when you go up to 16 the button for 15 would light up
    automatically the door stayed open and waited on 15. On 15 the indicator
    said 0 at 15, but it said 16 at 16. When my mom and I went there she wanted
    to look around on 16 but I wanted to wait for her in the elevator and guess
    what happened….. It went back down to 15 without me pressing the button
    and next time we went there we looked around on both 15 and 16 and the next
    time we caught by security and he told us that floors 15 and 16 were
    CLOSED. I think that elevator was originally a Mark 4 Westinghouse. The
    next time we went there the door was closed on 15 and 16 was completely
    VACANT. They are now renovating the 15th and 16th floors. My mom once
    worked on the 16th floor at the Meadow Park Tower.
    The 15th and 16th floors in the Meadow Park Tower are now renovated.

  8. I kind of like this elevator system because of the bell on elevator
    #2 but do the 3 other elevators have a working bell

  9. i found a set of elevators like this in Washington PA but there OTIS and
    there only 11 floors

  10. 2 of the 4 elevators are still in service. They are modernized by Schindler

  11. A couple of extra facts since I’ve been fascinated with this building since
    I was a kid.

    (1) The lobby was for First National Bank’s tellers (they share the lower
    floors with an insurance company) and when they moved into their own
    building two blocks over the investment firm Dean Witter Reynolds occupied
    the first floor.

    (2) The 20th floor that you filmed was a restaurant and the night of the
    tornado two of my great aunts were up there having supper. When the storm
    first hit they all moved to the emergency stairwell.

    (3) It did indeed take on a F5 directly and if you look up at the SW
    corner of the building you can see the building twist a few degrees and the
    bricks off the elevator shaft popped off. Too bad you weren’t able to see
    where the reinforced the steel on the lower floors.

    (4) Several days after the May 11, 1970 tornado downtown was kept
    evacuated for fears the building was going to fall. Actually, it sat empty
    for about six years until a group of real estate investors in Amarillo
    bought the building for the back taxes.

    (5) Texas Tech University received several grants to inspect the building
    and the south facade on what I remember to be the 5th & 5th floors was torn
    away so the engineers and students could study. This is how the Texas Tech
    Wind Engineering program was started.

    The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal has a lot of pictures from that tornado.
    Thanks for letting me babble on.

    http://lubbockonline.com/slideshows/010309/373680407/slide1.shtml 

  12. Unfortunately, I looked up on the TDLR Elevator Lookup, and I found out
    that Schindler had modernized these elevators in 2013. So now, these
    historic elevators have been horribly butchered.

  13. I can guarantee you from the operation of these elevators that they are not
    original Westinghouse elevators.