On This Day…

First Passenger Elevator

March 23, 1857

The first commercial passenger elevator is opened to the public. Elisha Graves Otis‘ passenger elevator had a safety device that prevented the fall of the cab if the cable broke. He had demonstrated it at the New York exposition in the Crystal Palace in a dramatic, death-defying presentation in 1854, earning him his first customer, the Haughwout Department Store in New York City.