What do the Iconic land mark buildings like the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, the Kremlin, and the Burj Khalifa have in common? They all have elevators from OTIS Elevator Company. The company, which is celebrating its 165th anniversary, has an interesting history. it was founded in 1853, the year Elisha OTIS invented the elevator safety brake. Before OTIS’ invention, buildings rarely reached seven stories. But it was OTIS’ elevator that would allow for the creation, and proliferation of, the skyscraper – an explosion that would forever alter the 20th and 21st century skylines. In 1854, OTIS attempted to shatter the public’s conception of the elevator’s perilousness by performing a dramatic, death–defying demonstration of his safety break feature, cutting the hoisting platform rope at New York’s World Fair in 1854. It seems the stunt worked – in 1857 the first OTIS passenger elevator was installed at 488 Broadway. Soon after, the OTIS elevator appeared in the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building. Today OTIS offers products and services through its companies in more than 200 countries and territories, and maintains approximately 1.9 million elevators and escalators worldwide.
OTIS is a unit of United Technologies Corp., a leading provider to the aerospace and building systems industries worldwide. Today’s modern buildings are demanding the elevator’s transformation. For example, the OTIS Elevator Company’s latest invention, the Gen2 Switch™ elevator, is solar-power capable.
While OTIS’ foremost concerns since our company’s earliest days has been Safety and reliability, OTIS can boast to have one of the best safety records in the vertical transportation industry. We at OTIS strive constantly to improve the safety of existing products and are always involved in developing safer technologies for new products. OTIS emphasizes a corporate policy of “safety first” and implements standardized procedures to ensure that every installation and service task is performed the safest way, every time.
