- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Ivan R Dee, Inc; illustrated edition edition (28 Sep 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1566633850
- ISBN-13: 978-1566633857
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15 x 3.8 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,606,839 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
Elisha Graves OtisAIs safe elevator made possible the construction of the skyscraper and laid the technical foundation for dynamic urban centers around the world. Jason GoodwinAIs account of the product and the business that Otis created is an American story of continuous growth and reinvention.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Better than I expected, 15 Oct 2001
By Nonfiction Steve - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Otis: Giving Rise to the Modern City (Hardcover)
I've worked for Otis for nearly 30 years. I thought I knew how the company started and grew, but I was wrong. This book, produced by United Technologies, Otis' parent corporation, could have just been a promotional piece, but to the credit of the author I found it to be a well researched, well written chronical of Otis' humble New York beginnings in 1853 through today's global presence.It is a book written for people who are interested in the growth of the world's greatest cities and a company that was instrumental for that growth.
The biggest surprise was the book's readability. Goodwin helped me understand the personalities and motivations of the people who brought Otis to where it is today. He painted pictures of the situations surrounding the events which helped me understand the logic behind Otis' progress. I felt he dealt honestly with United Technologies' takeover of Otis in 1976 (which I experienced) and brought the influences of Otis' global operations into perspective.
It is an eye opener for internal Otis associates, and an educational experience for non-Otis readers who want to learn how a company can start from nothing and influence the way we all live. It is a book about machines, business, cities, and time. I highly recommend it.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not quite as 'elevating' as I expected, 12 Feb 2004
By Vic Ridgley - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Otis: Giving Rise to the Modern City (Hardcover)
I enthusiastically added "Otis" to my Wish List when it was released, largely on the strength of a positive review in the WSJ, and recently acquired a copy after a decent, two-year wait. The companion editorial and positive customer reviews on this page amply show how and where the book is strongest, in detailing the corporate-history activities that promoted Otis to prominence and dominance in the elevator industry.BUT, what I found hugely missing from the book was a systematic, engineering-oriented account of elevator technologies, in the form of line drawings, photographs or diagrams. The 48 pp of B&W material alluded to in the reviews cover mostly on-site head shots, more appropriate for an in-house corporate publication.
The text makes numerous references to particular elevator technologies, favoring them with a cursory verbal description, but no real sense of what an installation looked like. The only verbal description that does justice to any conceptual design is Goodwin's description of Otis' early "stunt" elevator, where a rope pulled upward on a flat, flexible steel bar mounted flat on the cage roof, and wider than the cage, so that when pulled, the bar bent upward in the middle and retracted from the side rails, allowing the car free travel, but when the rope was cut, the steel bar flattened out and its projecting ends stuck in the side rails to arrest the fall.
So, if you want to learn something about the mechanics of elevators, look elsewhere; perhaps in a classic compendium of old Scientific American issues and articles from the 19th century entitled, "Free Enterprise Forever." In short, the book is competently researched and written, but not very interesting. A better bet is The Mechanical Turk, by Tom Standage, an intriguing, ilustrated account of a seemingly mechanical chess-playing wizard.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Up-Down..None of above...., 9 Oct 2001
By denny j Huber - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Otis: Giving Rise to the Modern City (Hardcover)
"Elevators'..is modern sounding,compared to stevadore implication of British..'Lift'. Began in 1853 by mechanic Elisha Otis,(NY foundry), this corporate history was commissioned by parent co...United Technologies,which paid in advance for 'modest # of copies". Otis's automatic braking system took fear out of skyscrapers-, but implosions of WTC has put it back
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