Very High Tech - Elevator Garages in an NYC Hi-Rise

theodp writes "If the hassle of getting groceries from the parking garage to your 12th floor condo has been holding you back from buying a deluxe apartment in the sky, wait no more. Wired reports on the En-Suite Sky Garages at 200 Eleventh Avenue (Flash) in Chelsea, where an 8,000-pound-capacity freight elevator will whisk your Bentley directly into your pad. The convenience doesn't come cheap — a garage-equipped 2BR starts at $4.7M."

Comments

Cheaper than parking on the street

[jihadist]

New York parking prices are insane and with all the traffic, it's cheaper and faster to bicycle through the freezing snow and angry muggers. Maybe that will eventually make it a "green" city.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[__aaclcg7560]

New York... with all the traffic... bicycle through the freezing snow and angry muggers.

Sounds like a terrific arcade game! :)

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Finallyjoined!!!]

Multi-level too. Yay :-)

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[hax0r_this]

1. Too many cars 2. Don't get a car 3. Less cars 4. Get a car Too many cars isn't going to result in less cars. High gas prices, on the other hand, might.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[jawtheshark]

Too many cars isn't going to result in less cars. High gas prices, on the other hand, might

Perhaps, but only perhaps. Over here in Europe (assuming you're American, sorry) gas prices are already very high. Filling up my car is a good 70€ these days, and I live in one of the "cheaper" countries in Europe.

Yet, every morning, there is a steel queue in direction of the closest city. All going to work. It's 8:15 now. Would I leave for work now, getting to my workplace, would take about 35 to 40 minutes. Leaving in an hour or so, will cut that back to 15 minutes or less. Parking is no problem for me, my workplace provides those. Others are less lucky and easily pay 15€ or more a day.

Of course, I'm one of the bad guys in the game too. My workplace is 10km from here, I have a bicycle road practially from my home to my workplace. I used it a few times in the summer. It's fun, but you get at work completely sweaty (it's a hilly country and most of the time I'm going uphill). There are no showers at my workplace, and you see where I'm going. :-(

Public transportation you say? Takes ~50 minutes. 25 minutes walking to the train station, 10minutes train, waiting for the bus another 5 minutes, the bus standing in traffic 10 minutes. That's of course when I'm lucky and don't miss a train or a bus. Yes, I also did this before.

So, just jacking up the gas prices won't help much. From my point of view the time saved is worth the price, so unless gas prices become unaffordable for the common man, nothing will change.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[fractoid]

...bicycle through the freezing snow... Sounds like some global warming would do you good. :)

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Anonymous Coward]

Not exactly the same. Your comment did remind me of that game though.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly what is going to happen. Private transportation is a privilege for our rich masters. It is our proper lot in life to sit in the dust waiting in huddled masses, contemplating our inferiority to the highborn elite as they pass by us in motorized carriages. That's why gas prices are being raised beyond our means by forces beyond our control.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[nospam007]

Of course, I'm one of the bad guys in the game too. My workplace is 10km from here, I have a bicycle road practially from my home to my workplace. I used it a few times in the summer. It's fun, but you get at work completely sweaty (it's a hilly country and most of the time I'm going uphill). There are no showers at my workplace, and you see where I'm going. :-(
___

Get an elektrobike, that's what I did. It's exactly for that, no sweat. It 'removes' the hills from your road, it's like biking _down_ the hill.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[MaXMC]

You could cut like 15 minutes of the Public transportation trip by using the bicycle to the station...

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Xiph1980]

sorry, didn't see your reply.
Guess I saw that line as a comment...
Modded you redundant for what I thought was just a repeat of previous poster. Aiming to undo my modding by posting this post ;)

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Anonymous Coward]

Why get a folding bike and ride to the station? Take it easy and you don't sweat, I assume our vaguely in condition. You can then fold up your bike and get on your bus, get off the other end and ride to work.

Even better on your way home you could ride all of the way.....

http://www.bromptonbicycle.co.uk/

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Tom]

Public transportation you say? Is an option if you live near the station, but only then. Public transport has, unfortunately, been all but demolished in many parts of Europe. The German government, for example, is currently busy selling 50% of the train system - estimated worth: 100 billion Euros. Ask price for half of that: 6 billion Euros. If that isn't a fire-sale, I don't know what is. We'll probably find a good part of that government with lucrative positions in certain corporations once their careers are over.

Why do I mention this? Because it's been going on for about 10 years, and all those years train service in Germany has gone down. Remember when the Germans were famous for being punctual? One thing Germany was famous for was how its trains ran on the minute. If it said 8:52 on the time table, it would be there at 8:52 and not 8:53 (or somewhere between 8:45 and 9:00, like almost everywhere else). Those times are over. Train delays have become so common that they're a running gag.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[CharlieG]

Until your job makes you lock your scooter/bicycle outside, and it gets stolen on week 2. Been a major problem where I work. I know a few people who rode for a while - all gave up when their bicycle got stolen. That said, of the 3, one now walks or roller blades (He lives that close) and the other 2 are taking mass transit.

Me? I've taken mass transit for 10 years, but next month will drive, because my MD said "The standing on the train and subway is hurting your leg - either drive, or stay home" (I have a leg wound, and standing, for even 20 minutes a day is causeing serious health issues - I've been out of work, in bed for 2 weeks to keep it elevated (restricted to bed) - and will be for another 2 weeks. I know I'll actually be glad to get back to Mass transit in December

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Corporate Troll]

So, essentially, cutting down 10 minutes making the commute the same time as if he were in the traffic jams... However, he isn't in the traffic jams, since he goes to work late (and as such is better for the environment than his traffic jam waiting compatriots)

That is assuming he doesn't miss the train, nor the continuing bus.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Richard W.M. Jones]

This is one of the many things the current government in the UK is getting wrong.

I don't object at all to high-priced petrol, but you've got to give people the alternatives at the same time. If you live anywhere outside London there are basically no good transport alternatives to the car.

For example, in my last job there was no real alternative way for me to get to the office other than driving up and down the M1 (Britain's largest, busiest motorway). Trains don't go that route because the train line was closed down in the 60s and successive governments have shown no interest in reopening those lines even though there is a sizable movement of people wanting it. The nearest train is also very expensive -- something like 3x the price of the car.

One thing which could be done to help you would be to mandate that all employers install showers for their workers. The costs would be small (they already have to provide toilets, and a shower stall takes up hardly any more space than a toilet). They should also be required to provide a secure place to lock up your bicycle. There's a cost here, but a large benefit (suddenly a number of your employees become healthier, more refreshed when they arrive at work, better able to concentrate, etc.)

Rich.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[moosesocks]

Obligatory hair-raising video of a helmet-mounted cam of a guy riding from Central Park down to the southern tip of Manhattan. He's got nerves of steel.

Also, buy a really strong lock.

Alternatively, NYC's got arguably one of the cheapest and most extensive mass-transit system on the planet. Owning a car in the city is just plain dumb unless you need to cart around big heavy items all the time.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry. At least we have to pay more for food and other consumer items because of the higher cost of their gas...

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[RobBebop]

There are no showers at my workplace, and you see where I'm going. :-(

I know a few friends who have showers at work, and if that is your biggest complaint it might be worth it to talk to HR and see if they can accommodate you. Of course, there are probably others in your office who would also benefit and you can try to rally a group of employees to request this rare benefit.

Who knows... the government might even offer a tax incentive to a business who encourages this to cut down on the social costs of high traffic, environmental harm, and the health costs that result from a population of lazy, automobile-reliant citizens (I am from America, where "fat" is a big problem).

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[innerweb]

OMG! You are making sense, and your first name seems to be Richard. You Heretic! How dare you suggest employers do anything to help their employees, especially if it might make them better employees. Next thing you know, they will start feeling good about themselves. Oh, and where does that go? No good I tell you! No good at all. Employees feeling good, being healthy and expecting their employers to do what is right. Gads!

[/humor]

InnerWeb

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[GentlemanRogue]

Amen to that, brother -- I never owned a car in the eighteen years I lived just outside there (albeit those were the first eighteen years of my life), but those formative years have led me to never own a car in my 38+ years of existence in 3 different cities, one of which had a horrible transit system, the other of which was just voted North America's #1 large-city transit system for 2007. Back on topic, the elevators look like an interesting concept, and there's little reason to not do it. Removing even one surface-level parking space is a good thing. If we're going to grow upward, let's grow everything upward. Of course, I always liked the concept of freight elevators converted for passenger use in old loft-style buildings... and once we all get our flying cars, it's a simple matter to kick out the back wall of your suite-level garage and have sky-accessible 30th floor parking :-).

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[jamar0303]

Yeah... now Japan is the country to look to for punctuality and good public transport. And boy do they do it well (if America had its own Shinkansen, I bet demand for DC-Boston or DC-NYC flights would drop to near-zero, same for the West Coast SF-LA).

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Transtrek]

I seem to recall that most bike locks have a "void in NYC" warranty.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[bcattwoo]

Nobody drives anymore, there is too much traffic.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[MaXMC]

Yeah, it's still better for the environment for him to take the buss than it is to take the car...

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Megane]

One thing which could be done to help you would be to mandate that all employers install showers for their workers.

That's unlikely to happen in the US. The reason is because it's a liability because someone might sliiiip and faaaaall. And sue the company into oblivion. I remember when a friend of mine who worked for a big games publisher showed me their new penthouse digs. They had installed showers but were waiting for a proper safety inspection and approval before they could open them.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[begbiezen]

Alternatively, NYC's got arguably one of the cheapest and most extensive mass-transit system on the planet. What?!?
Not cheap really. $2 and rising. Not as expensive as some, but not cheap.
Saying NYC's public transit is the best in the country might be true, but that ain't saying much.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[hador_nyc]

Sounds like a terrific arcade game! :)

Yes of course it is; we've all played Frogger!

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[plague3106]

Yes, in the dead of winter. And by running all the stop signs / traffic signals, choosing sidewalk or road, whichever is more convient, and by NOT following the clearly marked bike paths (with stops signs when you come to ramps to Interstates).

Sorry, dealing with bikers as I do up here, I want to BAN them from use any anything but dedicated bike paths. They just don't follow the rules, and do whatever they want.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Suzuran]

Not necessarily - We have a lot more ground to cover, and the TSA would get involved and screw the whole thing up.
We'd need a complete change of government to eliminate the TSA and all the homeland security BS, and a loco about 50% faster than Shinkansen. (Unobtainium.)
That might stand a chance.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[flooey]

Maybe that will eventually make it a "green" city.

Actually, in terms of average energy cost per resident, New York City is already one of the greenest cities in the US. Less than half of households own cars, 1 in 3 mass transit trips in the US is made on the NYC subway, and dense apartment buildings mean your excess heat and cooling leaks into your neighbor's residence instead of the air. If you were to take New York City's residents and change the population density to that of Suffolk County (the eastern county on Long Island), you would need an area the size of Maryland to house them.

In terms of environmental impact per square mile, New York City is certainly terrible, but in terms of environment impact per person (which is generally a better metric), New York City does fabulously.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[mikael]

Especially since most food has travelled 1500 miles from the farm to your house - and that doesn't include the distance for fertilisers and pesticides to make it from the factories to the farms.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Chuckstar]

New Yorkers already use less energy per capita than any other Americans.

http://www.architectmagazine.com/industry-news.asp?sectionID=1006&articleID=549698

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[p0tat03]

$2 per fare? That's pretty damned cheap considering how extensive the service here. Up north here in Canada, we pay $2.75 (and set to rise!) for a subway system that covers a few select neighbourhoods outside downtown, along a very narrow corridor. To get to anywhere people *actually* live involves transferring from the (admittedly good) subway system onto surface buses that take forever and a day to get anywhere.

Not to mention your system actually moves people out to the 'burbs. If you want to leave metro Toronto on public transit it's $4 each way.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Pope]

Sounds like half the drivers on the road: ignore traffic lights and turn indicators, drift through crosswalks on red lights, don't stop at 4 way stops or understand right of way, etc.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[p0tat03]

Not really. The train only has to beat the total travel time of the airplane, which nowadays is increasing steadily. Between early check-ins and clearing security, picking up your baggage, etc, etc, trains don't have to beat your 30-min in-the-air time, they get to beat your 4 hours from arrival at airport to the time you walk out, including delays.

If you throw in a locomotive as quick as the Shinkasen, you can easily give airplanes a run for their money in terms of total travel time and hassle.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Pope]

They just don't follow the rules, and do whatever they want.

Sounds like half the drivers on the road: ignore traffic lights and turn indicators, drift through crosswalks on red lights, don't stop at 4 way stops or understand right of way, etc.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[aduzik]

Here's a point of comparison. I live in West Des Moines, IA but work near the State Capitol which is east of downtown Des Moines. Around here, you can't really get anywhere except in a car. I drive about 10 miles to work, a couple of miles to lunch and back, and 10 miles back home every day. (And yes, even in a city the size of Des Moines we have some traffic congestion, despite the $429 million they just spent to expand the 14 mile I-235 through town, although it's still 100% better than it used to be) Yesterday, I paid $2.64 for gas, which is a total bargain -- but not quite as good as the $2.54 I paid last week. Insurance costs nearly $100 a month -- I'm 24, so hopefully it will get cheaper next year -- and my car payment runs about $250 a month. I usually buy a full tank of gas every 10-14 days for ~$45. That's 2 1/2 tanks per month. My total monthly costs are roughly $450 a month to drive a car, or about $15 a day.

To put these numbers in perspective, I live in a pretty nice apartment for $835 a month. So, it costs me more than half a month's rent just to get around town. Like just about anything else, public transportation is a trade-off.

I'm guessing that, even at $2 you rarely spend more than $15 a day to get everywhere you want to go. Adjusted for the cost of living, my $15/day probably works out to be more like $30/day in NYC. I would love to live in a city that has decent public transportation so I don't have to own a car. Midwestern cities are usually so spread out, though, that buses are the only reasonable public transportation, and it usually takes a long time to get where you're going.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Agripa]

What about the cost of the bicycle though? I doubt replacing it every week or two as it gets stolen would be attractive.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Anonymous Coward]

Water is more expensive than gasoline. Think of the water.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[jamar0303]

With the new delays and associated mess with air travel, we just need a high-speed West Coast link and a high-speed East-coast link with a cross-country link, so that the backbone is shaped like an H (or like a car's gear shift positions- another link connecting Michigan/Wisconsin/Illinois to Texas) with slower rail connections branching out from there, like Japan does. This will take people cross-country in an equivalent amount of time. Also, this way, existing infrastructure can be used too (connected to the high-speed backbone to service smaller towns and cities).

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[begbiezen]

To commute to the "burbs" as you say, here in NYC can cost anywhere from $8 to $45 each way.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Fulcrum of Evil]

When I went a couple years ago, NYC charged $7/day for subway access; that means that, for $7, you can ride as much as you want. Service was great in manhattan. Not as good in brooklyn.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[plague3106]

Sounds like half the drivers on the road: ignore traffic lights and turn indicators, drift through crosswalks on red lights, don't stop at 4 way stops or understand right of way, etc.

Not half, at least where I am. And I doubt where you are too; if half of all drivers ran red lights, there'd be serious problems. I grew up in Philly, so I also have plenty of experience with crowded cities.

Here though, 99% of all bikes I ever see as a matter of routine run all stop signs and red lights. I wish I were excaggerating, but I'm not. I didn't see this, even in and around Philly.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Neanderthal Ninny]

GTA New York. Maybe even a TV series.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[metlin]

Owning a car in the city is just plain dumb unless you need to cart around big heavy items all the time.

Oh come on, some of those egos weigh a ton. ;)

Seriously, though, I know a lot of people in NYC (trader types, mostly) who own and drive their cars only because they don't want to be seen as being "cheap" and not have a car. Peer pressure and all that.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[metlin]

I would love to live in a city that has decent public transportation so I don't have to own a car. Midwestern cities are usually so spread out, though, that buses are the only reasonable public transportation, and it usually takes a long time to get where you're going.

Tell me about it. I live in downtown Cincinnati, and yet it is almost impossible to be without a car. My girlfriend works just a few miles off (~20) and there are no buses that go there.

Also, public transport does not take you to any of the places that you may need to go to for groceries etc. I imagine that it's much worse in the suburbs. People I know drive ~40 minutes - 2 hours to get to work, and it's just accepted as the way of life.

And do you want to do any kind of activity? Good luck not having a car. Doing just about anything requires a car, and cabs and public transport are simply not as economical.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[MrCrassic]

I have to second this, as a person who just moved back to New York from New Jersey.

I had to do some heavy lifting for my mom's business, so I borrowed one of our cars for the week and brought it to NYC. I am a cyclist, so I try to bike to work as much as I can to get more training time. With my bike, "parking" is as easy as lifting my ride to my apartment (no elevators here!) and putting it right next to my computer area. When I had this car, however, I had to make sure that it was parked on the alternate side of the street, every business day, without fail. Failure to move it costs $45.

Another large concern was the area that I live in. My part of Brooklyn (Sunset Park), while much safer than its past history, is still a bit questionable. I, for one, would definitely not park my Bentley anywhere on that block. The car that I used is a 1993 Acura Legend, and I still was very wary of leaving it parked there. It's also diabolically hard to find parking anywhere there; one can wait on the order of an hour or so for one to open up nearby my apartment. There's also the option of taking the chance and parking it under the Gowanus Expressway, which is a big concern for me for the issue mentioned above.

Furthermore, driving the car anywhere around New York City was a huge pain. I did most of my work on weekends, and the hardest part out of all of my trips was getting in or out of Manhattan. The ironic part of that was that taxi cabs, the solution to this problem, also manifests it several times over. Getting to Midtown by bike has always been as fast, if not faster, than driving or using mass transit (and I average 19 - 22 mph on these trips).

Compounded with insurance, additional services and the ever-increasing cost of gas (heading towards a cool $100 per gallon, as per today's Wall Street Journal update), buying a nice $2000 road bike makes a hell of a lot more sense in New York than funneling cash flow into an auto. Unless you go to New Jersey a lot.

Did I mention that auto parking lots let bikes park there for free when cars usually cost $20 - $50 an hour?

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[moosesocks]

You can get a NYC monthly subway/bus pas for $76 the last time I checked.

Funny bit about urban planning, huh? It's one thing that we got completely and profoundly wrong in the past century. Suburbia was a compromise between dense urban areas and rural villages that never quite panned out, and left us with an unsustainable infrastructure, with all sorts of lovely side effects, among which included the demise of the concept of local business.

Oddly enough, the one place I lived where I never regretted not owning a car was Alaska. Granted, I never lived there during the winter when things would have been quite different, but public transportation and my bike were more than adequate.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[moosesocks]

The NYC system doesn't directly move people out of the city. That's done by Amtrak, NJTransit, MetroNorth, and the Long Island Railroad. Each of those have considerably higher fares than the MTA Subways and buses.

Also take comfort in the fact that your currency is actually worth something these days. For the 21st Century, the US has taken over from Argentina to become the world capital for horrendously poor and irresponsible economic policy.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[justin12345]

NYC transit tops out at $76 a month, as that is the cost for unlimited monthly use. Unlike everything else in this city, transportation is a steal. Having a car here is really a huge pain, anyway. My business partner used to have a car when he lived in Brooklyn, and he hated it. Its not just the traffic. You either have to pay a fortune to garage it (likely both at home and at work (easily $800 per month, unless your company is paying, which if they are small they aren't), or make time for moving it from one side of the street to the other practically every day for street cleaning. Keep in mind that everyone else is doing the same thing and there are never enough spots, its like playing musical chairs with the entire neighborhood. Then add to that the fact that the smallest parking ticket you can get in NYC is now well over $100. Personally I love driving, and try to do so whenever I get out of town, I'm in no way anti-automobile. Its just too bad that more care wasn't taken to preserve our nation's public transit systems. If NYC's subway, with its dingy atmosphere, dated infrastructure, rats, and general smelliness was the worst the country had to offer instead of the best, our country as a whole might be less stressed out and less overweight.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[adavies42]

Still do. Also $24/week and $76/month, great for commuters. Also a 10% bonus on stored value cards--$20 buys you a $22 card, etc.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[adavies42]

Well, there's also PATH, which will get you from Manhattan to six places in the Jersey suburbs for even less than a subway fare--it's still $1.50.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[pete6677]

NYC parking tickets are only $45? Shit, it costs more than that to park legally!

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[edunbar93]

they don't want to be seen as being "cheap"

You know, I hear that chauffeurs are pretty expensive. And the next best thing - taxis - are way more than owning a car. Which has been the choice of wealthy New Yorkers for decades.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[Wolfrider]

o Time to consider buying a horse for transport again. ;-)

--G0t $Linky to WSJ article? tia?

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[cthulhu11]

... or unless you have a "thing" about not rubbing elbows with syphilitic heroin junkies begging for $. Yes, I've been on NYC public transit.

Re:Cheaper than parking on the street

[moosesocks]

Color me interested: How do you keep your $2000 bike safe from theft? I imagine that it would be a very lucrative target.

If I had to bike around NYC, I'd probably use something like a well-maintained 15-year-old road bike. Not flashy, but still a darn nice ride. (Once you've ridden on a decent road bike for a while, it's *really* hard to go back to anything else)

Of course, "home" for me has fluctuated so much for me the past few years, by the time I settle my transportation situation, it's time to pack up and go someplace else. The next time I have to pay to drag my bike on a plane, I'm ditching it and putting the $90 toward buying a nice one for once.

Of course, if you *do* drive to New Jersey all the time (ie. you're one of those insane revere-commuters) there's a strong argument for keeping your car parked in Secaucus or Hoboken (or Newark if you've got an armed guard).

Or just drop it all, and move to a cabin in the woods.

When I'm rich

[Anonymous Coward]

When I'm rich I'm going to wave at all you peasants from my sky garage.

Walk you peon!

They will sell

[kryten250]

I live in NYC, you don't see 500k+ Mercedes Benz McClarens parked in front of the corner store every night. If you can afford a car like that then the asking price isn't much. I doubt many volvo's will be on the elevator.

Re:They will sell

[JonathanR]

It would be much more cost effective to pay somebody else to haul your groceries up the stairs.

Re:They will sell

[Bloke down the pub]

Or, you know, get some sort of trolley.

Re:They will sell

[More_Cowbell]

1. Are you serious?
assuming yes, then for how long. A butler of the caliber residents such as these desire in NYC on 24/7 notice can't be that cheap. (avg yearly salary * number of years expected residency + cost of paperwork involved with keeping said employee and other hassles)

2. Seriously? these are not mansions. they may be *expensive* for your tastes, but not too much above the price range of the area, and there are no butler quarters in any of the floor plans I saw.

Re:They will sell

[Joebert]

I was thinking along the same lines.
Sounds like a classic case of lifting the entire bowl of soup to your mouth.

Re:They will sell

[Fred_A]

It would be much more cost effective to pay somebody else to haul your groceries up the stairs. I thought rich people maybe just liked to sleep in their cars every once in a while. But in the comfort of their apartment.

Re:They will sell

[Anonymous Coward]

Or pay a bunch of frat boys to reassemble your car at the top of the stairs.

Re:They will sell

[Jeremy Erwin]

Or, you could shop for what you need that day. There's no need to drive past the markets to get to a [i]super[/i]market. Use the urban setting to your advantage.

Re:They will sell

[The One and Only]

But you save money buying in bulk--which you need, to make up for the cost of your car elevator.

Sort of...

[SuperKendall]

It's like Grand Theft Auto, only you're playing the hooker.

Re:Sort of...

[rts008]

So Wrong! Sooo Funny!!! Sadly, so true....

Re:Sort of...

[ultranova]

It's like Grand Theft Auto, only you're playing the hooker.

While you propably meant that as a joke, Arcanum has a hooker mission and Fallout 2 lets you pay or get a disocunt with sex on some occasions. Then there's the Kunoichi and Kunoichi 2 modules for Neverwinter Nights, with sex being used as a weapon regularly.

What's missing is a managerial game - SimBrothel or something.

Re:Sort of...

[rgravina]

What's missing is a managerial game - SimBrothel or something.

That's a fantastic idea!

Re:Sort of...

[Doug Neal]

What's missing is a managerial game - SimBrothel or something.

That's a fantastic idea! "Whorehouse Tycoon" ?

Re:Sort of...

[alx5000]

... get a disocunt with sex...

What an appropriate Freudian episode...

Re:Sort of...

[jandrese]

Please, in keeping with the "streets" to avoid losing the "cred" of GTA, you would need SimPimp, complete with income (hos) and ouput (Caddys, gold teeth, purple hats).

one at a time please!

[lucas teh geek]

yay, now along with being stuck in traffic every morning, you also get the pleasure of waiting for your turn to use the damn lift every morning before you can even leave home.

Re:one at a time please!

[kryten250]

Reminds me of the kids at toy stores who keep pushing the button. I bet 'that' won't be a problem. --If I see a kid push it more than 5 times then I act flustered and say "That's too fast! It's gonna crash!!" and run away. The looks alone are worth it...

Re:one at a time please!

[jawtheshark]

Very funny, but I suspect this thing is going to be controlled with a keycard coded to your aparment. Insert keycard, you and your car go to the parking, you leave car, open door and you're in your hallway. So, no button-pushing pranksters, I fear.

Re:one at a time please!

[Nefarious Wheel]

If you're that rich, are you going to queue up to go to work in the morning? Naah, wait for the rabble to clear first.

Re:one at a time please!

[rvw]

Very funny, but I suspect this thing is going to be controlled with a keycard coded to your aparment. Insert keycard, you and your car go to the parking, you leave car, open door and you're in your hallway. So, no button-pushing pranksters, I fear. Nowadays pushing the button is done remotely. Think of using your remote control to change channels at the neighbours. The kids across the street will try to hack it, probably use the closed camera circuit to see how it works out.

Re:one at a time please!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're that rich, are you going to queue up to go to work in the morning? Naah, wait for the rabble to clear first.

If you're that rich and earned it from working, you're a workaholic starting at 3am every morning and you don't need much sleep.

Re:one at a time please!

[Provocateur]

Don't forget to unplug your iPod from your Bentley when you leeeeeeeeeeeeeeaave

Re:one at a time please!

[GentlemanRogue]

Since there are only 16 residences in the entire building, this likely will not be a tremendous concern. Also, at these prices, it's doubtful any of the residents will be the 9-5 lunchpail crowd, so their schedules should offer plenty of flexibility for coming and going...

Re:one at a time please!

[MightyYar]

In NYC, someone living in a $4.6 million apartment isn't all that rich! Sad, but true.

Re:one at a time please!

[kalirion]

For $4.7M, they'd better provide me with my own personal garage lift. And Benz. And helipad. And helicopter.

Re:one at a time please!

[Megane]

I think the real fun part is if some rich alcoholic lives in the high-rise and manages to damage the elevator at 3AM one night.

Re:one at a time please!

[Chuckstar]

Very few Manhattan dwellers drive their cars to work every day. Cars are generally for driving out of the city on the weekend. If you can afford a $4.7 million apartment, you are much more likely to just take a cab to/from work.

Re:one at a time please!

[ari_j]

Work?

Elevator Garage?

[teebob21]

What a colossal waste of living space and energy. This is a prime example of convenience trumping common sense. The kinetic energy alone to lift a 1000kg car up 50 meters to your garage exceeds 1.3 kW, even at a leisurely 6 minute round-trip pace. (1000kg*50m*9.8m/s^2*360sec = ~1300 W)

Now lets say you take the car out every day: 40 kW per person per month, 480kW/year person. If only 100 units are available in the building, that's 48MW of power used annually. Just to park the damn Bentley! The ironic bit is that the rich fat cats that will pay for this sort of convenience are the same ones that cry about "hurting the environment" every time someone wants to build a development outside the city (granted, the point may be valid). Start practicing what you preach, eh?

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Edmund Blackadder]

I dont know why you assume that the people that will be living in there are hypocrites.

People that care about the environment and live in new york just do not own cars. New York is rare in that it is much more convenient if you do not own a car and it is a complete pain in the ass if you do (and insist on using it). So if you care about the environment the choice is pretty simple.

I think people that will be living in that building just do not give a shit about the environment and need some way to get the out of the city and to the hamptons without having to use public transportation of any kind.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Anonymous Coward]

The ironic bit is that the rich fat cats that will pay for this sort of convenience are the same ones that cry about "hurting the environment"

But they bought "carbon credits"..... HAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Robert1]

Don't be dense. I'm sure as the elevator is lowering cars its being braked by a giant magnet and reclaiming most of the energy it used to lift the car. Just pretend its a giant a hybrid car.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[jdhutchins]

Units, units my friend. While watts is a unit of power, it is not a unit of energy- you probably meant to think kilowatt-hours.

Your equation for energy required to lift a car was wrong- regardless of the units you put on the end, Work = F*distance, not F*time (which is change in momentum)

Your calculations *should* have been:

Work required to lift a 1000kg car 50 meters: W = mg(deltaH) = 1000 * 9.8 * 50 = 490kJ
Work required to lift your car every day for a year: 178.85MJ

In more familiar units, since 1 kWh = 3 600 000 J,
Energy required to lift the car: 0.1361 kWh
Energy required to lift your car per year: 49.68 kWh
Energy required for 100 units: 4.97MHh

Re:Elevator Garage?

[teebob21]

Correction: My initial numbers were wrong. Using conventional units of measurement, the one-way lift power would be approximately 136.1 watt-hours per lift. For a single day use of 100 lifts, that's 13.6 kW-h daily use. Per year, this is roughly 4967 kw-h. The typical US household averages about 10000 kW-h annually. Forgive my late night physics and math.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[loraksus]

Just to park the damn Bentley!

Perhaps you haven't been to New York lately, there aren't any places to park in the city. What few slots remaining are either auctioned off for well over a hundred grand (highest I've heard was 225k with a waiting list) or run by shady theiving assholes like impark.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[teebob21]

I see you caught this sooner that I could type the post correcting it. I should have gone to bed an hour ago, instead of typing the OP...but thanks to mods who see an outlandish claim and don't bother verifying, it'll still probably get modded up. :)

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Anonymous Coward]

So in other words, if one hundred people all use this elevator daily, the total energy cost is equivalent to less than one half of one average US household. Or to put it another way, each individual will add 0.5% of one average US household to his energy usage. Oh, how horrible and wasteful this must be....

Re:Elevator Garage?

[teebob21]

People that care about the environment and live in new york just do not own cars.

I agree with you that those who actually care are making the choice to use public transit when possible. Those who insist on their own Bentley to get out to the Hamptons, as well as a lift to park their car on the 17th floor yet still make a public showing of their "support" for environmental causes are hypocrites.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Jartan]

This is a prime example of convenience trumping common sense. The kinetic energy alone to lift a 1000kg car up 50 meters to your garage exceeds 1.3 kW, even at a leisurely 6 minute round-trip pace. (1000kg*50m*9.8m/s^2*360sec = ~1300 W)

Except it's an elevator. If they build an elevator to lift cars without a counterweight or it's equivalent I'll be baffled. I'm sure there will be plenty of things to spend your environmental anger on in such a high style building but I doubt even a car elevator is one of them.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Anonymous Coward]

You interchange talking about energy and power. Watts are a measure of power, not energy. The SI unit for energy is the Joule. The common measurement of energy involving watts is the watt hour (3600 Joules) or the kilowatt hour (3.6 * 10^6 Joules).

The correct formula for energy to lift the car (unrealistically assuming 100% efficiency) is Energy = mass * acceleration * distance = 1000kg * 9.8m/s^2 * 50m = 490,000 J = 136.1 Wh = 140 Calories (kilocalories) = 2.6 Oreos = 0.0041 Gallons of Gasoline.

Secondly, who lives in NYC and uses their own car to commute to work everyday? Either you are poor and use the Subway or you are rich and you have car service. This is a car to take on a drive to the Hamptons. That would use a heck of a lot more energy than lifting the car up. Heck, driving a Bentley any significant distance in NYC traffic would exceed the energy use of the elevator.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Anonymous Coward]

The kinetic energy alone to lift a 1000kg car up 50 meters to your garage exceeds 1.3 kW, even at a leisurely 6 minute round-trip pace. (1000kg*50m*9.8m/s^2*360sec = ~1300 W)

The watt is a unit of power, not energy. Your figures work out to 490,000 Joules to lift the car, which is 0.14 kWh. At 10-20 cents per kWh, that is less than most people tip the parking valet.

Now lets say you take the car out every day: 40 kW per person per month, 480kW/year person. If only 100 units are available in the building, that's 48MW of power used annually.

You're confusing power & energy again. If 100 people ride the elevator once a day, every day for a year, that would be 5 MWh of energy, which isn't a whole lot.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Rudisaurus]

Re modding up -- that's sadly true; they already have. :)

GP beat me to it. But just to put things in perspective, the energy required to lift your 1000 kg car once is roughly equivalent to leaving a 100 W light bulb lit for 81 mins. Surprisingly modest, actually.

Cheers, Rudi

Re:Elevator Garage?

[heyguy]

You're right - those who are hypocrites are indeed hypocrites.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Bo'Bob'O]

Going 50 feet upwards takes the same energy no matter how you get there. Less so when you hoist it straight up with an efficient direct drive AC motor from a well maintained power plant then from an internal combustion engine. Without all the extra driving around, it's more efficient then having to park in a parking stricture, and FAR more efficient then having to drive around and find an empty spot.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[jaxtherat]

I don't see why this is flamebait... Sure, him maths is all off, but the idea is right. This is such a bloody waste... Oh sure, the consumer pays accordingly, but surely there should be some limits to our excesses :(

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your numbers are still wrong. Please: If you are to dumb for math, please refrain from making us as dumb as you are by posting your wrong assumptions. Thank you for your cooperation.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you only need to use the energy once. This is a repetitive process, so you can store energy going one way, and repay it going the other. The counterweight does this effectively. If you tune the counterweight to each car (perhaps with water?) the whole process could be almost energy neutral (discounting friction and the energy required to haul up the counterweight the first time).

I remember this from my early schooldays. But then, I'm not American.....

Re:Elevator Garage?

[TooMuchToDo]

Aren't electric motors amazing? They tell me they're going to run cars some day =)

Re:Elevator Garage?

[complete loony]

Plus with the right setup you could get a lot of that energy back when the car goes down again.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[SpectreBlofeld]

Elevators use counterweights and pulleys. It's not actually exerting the energy required to lift a car off the ground against gravity. Therefore it's a lot less wasteful than the car it's carrying.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Aren't electric motors amazing? They tell me they're going to run cars some day =)"

Erm... I think the elevator works that way because they have a counterweight on the other side. I may be mistaken about that, but I don't think it's simply a matter of an electric motor single-handedly lifting 8,000 lbs.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[kf6auf]

Oddly enough, the power it takes to lift a car 50 meters is also the power generated by lowering a car 50 meters. If you generate power on the way down, the net effect is pretty small (due to losses like friction).

Re:Elevator Garage?

[jrumney]

The counterweight cancels out the weight of the lift, so the electric motors only have to lift the weight of the car, not the car+lift.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[j_sp_r]

You forget you need to accelerate(!) and de accelerate the lift+car+counterweight. Because those lifts will be fast, so burn energy faster then necessarily needed.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Anonymous Coward]

bullshit

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides, everyone knows that electric Motors have a hard limit at 7,999 lbs. of lift. It's against the laws of physics to lift any more with them, or to use a worm gear or something.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[DeadDecoy]

Pfft, it's not hard to find parking in New York. Just go out and start driving. I guarantee you'll find parking at the next traffic jam. Then you just need to install motion-sensitive flamethrowers to fend off the pesky hobos and meter maids.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[the_lesser_gatsby]

The counterweight is not magic, it just balances the weight of the elevator. Energy certainly is required to lift the car against gravity, although a lot of it could be reclaimed on the descent with regenerative braking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterweight

Re:Elevator Garage?

[CmdrGravy]

I don't know about a waste of energy but it certainly seems like a complete waste of time. What is the benefit of getting in your car outside of your apartment and spending a couple of minutes descending in the lift to the road and getting the lift to the underground garage and getting in your car ?

Just how bone idle and lazy would you have to be to pay so much money to save yourself a minutes walk to your car in the car park. Don't the designers realise we're in the middle of an obesity epidemic right now !

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Chibi Merrow]

but surely there should be some limits to our excesses :(

There are, it's called your bank statement.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[s_mencer]

1000kg is only about 2200 lbs... a Bentley Continental weighs in at 5200 - 5500 lbs depending on the trim. The Arnage starts in at around 5700 lbs.

Thankfully they show an Audi Sedan in the video on the building's website. That means that even if it was an A8L it would still be 4700 lbs. Even the Q7 only tips the scales at about the same weight as the lightest Bentley.

Lets just be grateful they won't all be driving supercharged Range Rovers (5800 lbs) or Hummer H2s (6400 lbs).

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Dunbal]

There's this little thing called "friction", too.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Spacezilla]

Combine that with a counter-weight that weighs the same as the elevator + half of what an average car weighs (if you assume that the elevator will be carrying a car every other trip) and you won't need a whole lot of energy to operate the elevator.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Chineseyes]

Oh but it gets worse... the carbon credits were purchased with money earned from investments in Big Oil. The pain!!

Re:Elevator Garage?

[just fiddling around]

This calculation is good, but most cars weigh a little more than 1000 kg. To give you a comparison point, the 2003 Mazda Miata weighs 1060 kg empty.

But, as another poster said, the energy to lift a cars equals the energy to lower same car minus the efficiency losses. So the energy spent is just a "starting cost", most of which you get back . Kinda like putting your cash in a bank.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[petermgreen]

Afaict you would normally design the counterweight to balance the car plus some of the load, it means you need power to go down empty but it reduces the size of the motor you need and improves efficiancy if the lift usually runs loaded.

as you say regenerative breaking can improve things further.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[mcsqueak]

Well, besides the "prestige" factor I'm sure it's because they don't want parking garage "door dings" in their fancy cars. Hell I have a $21k car and I'm mortified of parking garage dings. I usually park on the street or the farthest end of the lot as possible. All that walking helps keep me in shape. ;)

Then again, a parking garage for rich folks probably has slightly large stalls...

Re:Elevator Garage?

[steelfood]

The building is 18 stories, 16-24 feet every two stories. If we use the high number, and say 24 feet every two stories, cut off the top story for the garage-less penthouse, that's 204 feet, which is about 62 meters.

Which makes it about 602kJ, or 0.169kWh. Or about (169 / 100 * 60) = 101 minutes, in the time it takes to go up. Considering we're dealing only with 1000kg and not the full 3630kg limit, I think that's a fair number to use for both up and down. So it's 202 minutes of a 100W light bulb for a round trip from bottom to top back to bottom.

There are 14 units with garages, 7 per elevator. Assuming that all 7 units use their garage once and only once, that's 1 unit where the elevator must go the maximum distance, and another 6 units with only a fraction of that distance. Essentially, it figures to about 4 round trips per elevator per day, or 808 minutes of a 100W light bulb.

Now, I have about 6 energy-saving light bulbs at home that use about 24W, but spit out the equivalent of 100W bulbs (dining room, 2x living room, kitchen, study/bedroom/bathroom). They're on for about 6 hours in the evening, and 2 in the morning on average, using the equinox to measure (typically from about 7pm-1am, and then from about 6am to 8am).

Assuming that i didn't have energy-saving light bulbs, the energy consumption for a day's elevator would be about 808 / 6 or 2.25 hours of lighting.

However, if I had energy-saving light bulbs, that's about 9 hours. So in essence, the operation of this elevator would consume the equivalent of lighting an extra apartment unit for a day.

Note, I made a lot of assumptions, didn't stick to those rules about significant digits, etc. so take it with a grain of salt. But the power requirements of this is minor, given the assumption that it'll only make 4 round trips a day.

On the other hand, say a round trip requires about 5 minutes, not including the loading/unloading. Every 20 minutes of elevator use would be 8-9 hours of an apartment's lighting consumption.

Now, these are all ideal numbers (energy required, in light bulbs, to lift a car 17 stories and then back down, or something like that). The actual power consumption is going to be much higher.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Anonymous Coward]

You presume that I care about global warming (I don't.) I recycle cans by bagging them up and leaving the bags outside my front door so that the local wino can gather them. I'd rather he get the recycling cash than the greedy city government. At least he's using the proceeds for an honest purpose - getting wasted on Mad Dog. But I digress.

If I could afford my own 4.7 million dollar mansion in the sky with a private elevator for my car, I'd buy it up faster than you could cry global warming. The environment is fucked whether I do the right thing or not, and anyways, I'll be dead by the time the ozone layer is finally depleted. Al Gore and his global warming groupies live in a fantasy world. They're the only ones who give a damn about wasting energy.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[Eponymous Bastard]

But just to put things in perspective, the energy required to lift your 1000 kg car once is roughly equivalent to leaving a 100 W light bulb lit for 81 mins. Surprisingly modest, actually. You might want to double or triple that, as someone who has that much money to spend probably has an SUV.

Which makes me wonder, Skyscrapers are built to hold up a certain weight per floor. How much bigger do the columns have to be to hold up an extra 4 tons per apartment? You'd be better off dedicating the first few floors to garages instead.

Besides you have to worry about running the engine inside the building (ventilation), and you get a garage rather than a third room, plus you lose the floorspace for the elevator on every floor (though I guess it doubles as a freight elevator).

And I don't want to imagine the pain of an elevator breakdown...

Re:Elevator Garage?

[TWooster]

Don't forget that elevators are very energy efficient. Properly counterweighted, the energy required to lift your car (or, conversely, the counterweight -- dependent upon whether you're moving the car up or down) would be considerably less. My physics is quite rusty, but I'm fairly certain the costs are closer to the work to lift the weight-different and the work to overcome friction. And make no mistake, these suckers will be counterweighted to match the weight of your Bentley -- costing the building owners less in maintenance and energy costs, assuming you don't pay those. Without taking friction into account, energy usage would be closer to:

Work required to lift 70 kg (let's call that the average weight of your tycoon, minus gold bars) 50 meters: W = 70 * 9.8 * 50 = 34.3kJ
Work required to lift your car every day for a year: 12.556 MJ.

But all this is moot anyway -- it'd be very close to exactly the same as that same tycoon just taking the elevator.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[rubycodez]

I'm not trusting any newfangled self-powered tin can that isn't pulled by a beast with a brain, any horseless or muleless carriage is a danger and let's stuff that kind of nonsense talk immediately!

Re:Elevator Garage?

[manifoldronin]

If you generate power on the way down, the net effect is pretty small (due to losses like friction).

Cool, let's start dropping some Bentleys to the ground! 8-)

Re:Elevator Garage?

[steveg]

Well...

Not really. If the counterweight really is exactly the same weight as the Bentley + elevator, then the energy to lower the empty elevator (i.e., lift the counterweight) would be the same as it would be to lift the Bentley in the case where the counterweight only offset the elevator itself. Either way, a round trip would involve a dead weight lift equivalent to that of the car. Unless each tenant had his own elevator, in which case it would never have to go down empty, you can't get away from this energy expenditure.

If you have a way to store the energy of the down trip (car or counterweight, it depends on which is heavier) *then* you might come closer to only using up frictional and other thermodynamic losses.

Re:Elevator Garage?

[toddestan]

Aren't electric motors amazing? They tell me they're going to run cars some day =)

On the topic of electric motors, I wonder if they could use them as generators when lowering the car back down, therefore recovering the a portion of the energy used to lift the car? If that's the case, this garage could actually be greener than a typical ramp where you burn fuel to go up, and don't recover any of that energy coming back down (some hybrids and electrics excepted).

Re:Elevator Garage?

[TooMuchToDo]

Probably not, as no kinetic energy is built up due to a counterweight being used.

Described in 1970 Heinlein Book

[GoSmalltalk]

This was described fully in Heinlein's "I will Fear No Evil". While the book wasn't exactly great Heinlein, it does describe apartment buildings with elevators for your cars. They are needed because in that worldview, crime was so rampant that your car was an upolstered tank, and your home was a fortress. Happily, that particularly dark vision has yet to come. However, it was written in the years of "burn, baby, burn" and very high crime, so it is certainly fodder for speculative fiction.

Re:Described in 1970 Heinlein Book

[ozmanjusri]

Happily, that particularly dark vision has yet to come.

Dark vision?

That was Heinlein's depiction of a libertarian paradise!

Re:Described in 1970 Heinlein Book

[hawk]

That was the one about the sage old man and the beautiful young nymphomaniac, right?

ok, ok. Bonus points for the first to name the last Heinlein novel that *wasn't* about those two :) :)

hawk

Wow, so soon!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like Japan 5 years ago or something.

That's no joke -- when the Americans are only 5 years behind the Japanese, you know something's up.

Re:Wow, so soon!

[deniable]

Or Sydney, 20 years ago. Vehicle storage buildings are nothing new. People use them because they have a very low footprint. You can stack a lot of cars in a very small lot.

A company I worked for used to build them. They got out before I started because maintenance calls were a bitch. Imagine what happens when one of these jams and people *need* their car.

Re:Wow, so soon!

[jrumney]

5? More like 20+. They had elevator equiped parking garages when I lived there in 1989, and they weren't new then.

Re:Wow, so soon!

[PPH]

My city car (a beater) leaks oil and gear lube. I wonder what the guy with the Bently directly below mine will think about this.

wow!

[j-stroy]

That means I could make out in a car and an elevator at the same time! If I had a girlfriend, and 4.7 million.. But just think of it! A girlfriend!

Re:wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sad thing is that, in the case of most people on this site, $4.7 million is easier to obtain than a girlfriend.

Re:wow!

[hyades1]

If you can afford nearly five million bucks just to get your car to the door of your apartment, believe me, getting a girlfriend won't be a problem.

Re:wow!

[Tuoqui]

It will if you're like 800lbs from not walking from the garage.

Re:wow!

[SolitaryMan]

You can even get two chicks at the same time!

Re:wow!

[MLease]

Actually, the combination of 800lbs and a multi-million net worth is very attractive to some. They figure they'll probably only have to put up with you for a few weeks after the wedding before you drop dead of a heart attack or stroke, and they inherit everything. Sooner, if they're hot enough....

-Mike

Re:wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the combination of 800lbs and a multi-million net worth is very attractive to some.

Is that your excuse for eating all the pies?

Re:wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, i actually have a girlfriend (really, i'm only posting anonymously because i have moderated in this thread and this would be a waste of mod points) and i can tell you a little secret: Having a girlfriend (and fucking) is not what you believe it to be when jerking off. While there are surely sluts out there who you can fuck whenever you want, most girls will involve work or lets say, most relationsships involve lot of maintenance. Most guys end up making themselves virtually slaves of their girlfriends (doing nasty things like cleaning up, stopping sitting all day at the computer and so on and on) just for the chance of one (or two, if your are lucky) fucks per week. Now i really like having real life sex and this is what still keeps me in my relationship, but if i could decide again with what i know now, i would probably not get a girlfriend but save my nerves (and money) and get to a hooker every now and then.

Re:wow!

[TooMuchToDo]

Hah! You're not counting on the combination of an airhead and a trust conduit. Death at an early age from weight-induced heart attack? Not that bad if you're getting some hot sex up till the end, AND your fortune goes to a non-profit dedicated to instead of the gold digger. Check. Mate.

Re:wow!

[iamacat]

Well, did you try to expect more from your girlfriend than fucking you 1-2 times a week? Like dressing sexy, stopping sitting all day yapping with girlfriends on the phone and so on and on. After all, human relationships are supposed to have depth. It's no fun hanging around with someone who is messy and doesn't talk to you much. If all you are interested is sex without any effort on your part to make yourself attractive, by all means dump your girlfriend and find a good hooker. Why would you want to spend your life being a slave and waste time on things you are not interested in.

Re:wow!

[Anpheus]

Dude, if I had a million dollars...

Re:wow!

[Tom]

Actually, you can do that already, for a few Euros, but only if you're quick (the journey takes about two minutes or so):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Elbe_Tunnel

That's a tunnel from 1911, and it has car lifts on both sides of it.

Re:wow!

[uhlume]

With that kind of attitude, you might consider yourself lucky she fucks you at all. Enjoy it while it lasts -- even the most desperate of women won't suffer you for long.

Re:wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? My wife fucks me often enough, doesn't complain much, gives me a hot (by any standards) sexy body to feel up whenever I want, and arranges meets with other couples for us (for sex)... Next two weekends we're going to swingers parties for couples and single girls only. She's ten years younger tan me. Oh, and she's educated at one of the best universities in the UK, and just started working at a far above average salary. You've just found a shitty gf

Re:wow!

[j-stroy]

Labelling a woman who wants to fuck a "slut" is a pattern of gender abuse. It does not make a woman a slut if she is appreciates sex. I agree that 2 times a week is too little overall.. I've heard its possible to improve your sex life, in fact I get emails about it all the time! You're anonymous, or I would forward them to you..

--
In Soviet Russia girlfriends FUCK YOU!

Re:wow!

[MLease]

It might be, if I had a multi-million net worth! :)

-Mike

Re:wow!

[MLease]

True. But she doesn't have to know about that, until it's too late.... :>

-Mike

Re:wow!

[Dunbal]

That means I could make out in a car and an elevator at the same time! If I had a girlfriend, and 4.7 million.. But just think of it! A girlfriend!

      If you had 5 million dollars, the girlfriend would NOT be a problem believe me. Women are attracted to money.

Re:wow!

[Agripa]

Two chicks at the same time, man. And I think if you were a millionaire you could hook that up, too; 'cause chicks dig dudes with money.

Re:wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a black belt and I can kick down you're house! I can piss across the country! Internet!

Re:wow!

[scottv67]

My wife fucks me often enough, doesn't complain much, gives me a hot (by any standards) sexy body to feel up whenever I want, and arranges meets with other couples for us (for sex)...

Wow! Bill Clinton reads /.? We are honored by your presence, Mr. President

Groceries

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to live on the 23rd floor of a high-rise in Chicago. Groceries were never a problem. The 1st floor of the building was a grocery store and they delivered with purchases of $20 or more (excluding alcohol and cigarettes). Likewise all the local grocery stores would deliver to your apartment free of charge with a minimum purchase. You could phone or fax your grocery order in and pay for it on delivery (even pay with a check) or you could go down and select your items, pay for them, and one of the box boys would lug the stuff up for you.

It would've been possible for a hermit to never leave the building. The local laundry picked up and delivered for free. The drug store would deliver prescriptions for free. And we had a full gym with half-Olympic pool on the 5th floor. There was even a dog-walk service available for a small fee. That's how things work in inner cities.

Re:Groceries

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to live on the 23rd floor of a high-rise in Chicago. Groceries were never a problem. The 1st floor of the building was a grocery store and they delivered with purchases of $20 or more (excluding alcohol and cigarettes). Likewise all the local grocery stores would deliver to your apartment free of charge with a minimum purchase.

What? No seriously, what?

Attention American apartment owners!

1. Drive to your apartment block.
2. Carry your groceries the short distance to the human-sized elevator.
3. Go up to your floor.
4. Carry your groceries the short distance from the elevator to your apartment.

You guys seriously have home delivery from a store in your own fucking building? This is why you guys are so fat!

Re:Groceries

[jpellino]

"half-Olympic pool on the 5th floor."

And some very very jittery residents on the 4th floor...

Re:Groceries

[Anonymous Coward]

And we had a full gym with half-Olympic pool on the 5th floor.

Are you sure it was "half Olympic"? I'm tired of this misnomer. Olympic sized swimming pools are 50m by 8 lanes (at a minimum, these days they could be 16+ lanes). Being that you were in residence located in the US it is likely that the pool was a 6 lane 25 *yard* pool. That doesn't make it "half Olympic" (not that there is any such name in the first place).

25 SCY (short course yards -- this is used most commonly (probably only) in the United States)
25 SCM (short course meters -- this is used internationally and for some international swimming events)
50 LCM (long course meters -- what they use internationally and for the Olympics).

Anything other than that isn't up to any specification. Before you start quoting whatever incorrect marketing material exists for a health club, condo, or other sports facility, I suggest you know what you're talking about so that you don't continue this falsehood.

To a swimmer that is akin to saying that 1GB is really 1,000,000 MB.

Re:Groceries

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

All these services and more (daily cooks come in and make your curry and roti, piano/violin/karate teachers come in to teach your kids) are available in Mumbai even for middle class (by income) people.

Re:Groceries

[Lord_Breetai]

Everything you described reminds me of William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy.

Re:Groceries

[hattmoward]

"To a swimmer that is akin to saying that 1GB is really 1,000,000 MB."

I guess you missed that memo from Seagate, Maxtor, and Western Digital...

Your all missing the point - it's about security

[timmarhy]

Security for both you and your car. no bitch can key your $250k car and no homeless bum can jump you in the car park.

I would totally pay for one if i had the cash.

Consider

[fishbowl]

The kind of people who "live" in the really expensive NYC real estate tend to not spend much time there themselves. These apartments are status symbols. Places to send your clients who want something better than a Times Square hotel room. Places to have an occasional party. That sort of thing. The person who has a Bentley and a $5 million apartment in NYC also has a "ranch" outside Denver, a mansion on the Big Island of Hawaii, and an island in the Caribbean... and somebody on the payroll to deal with the Bentley, and drive it, and park it. Not for the owner. For the people the owner is trying to impress...

Re:Consider

[Anonymous Coward]

You see, someone holds a different perception than you. Rather than post a convincing view in reply, they just gave you the "flamebait" label.

That's what you get for not "hailing to the chimp"!

Re:Consider

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder why this was marked flamebait. It does sound quite reasonable.

Re:Consider

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is a five million dollar apartment in NYC "really expensive"?

The average Manhattan apartment is 1m. The people you describe would have 25m+ apartments. The people living in 5m apartments are nearly regular people, by Manhattan standards.

Re:Consider

[Fallen Seraph]

You've clearly never looked at real estate prices in NYC, lived/worked in NYC, and might very well be delusional.

I'm an IT intern just starting, and looking for an apartment in NYC that I can afford on my reasonably decent intern salary. It's pretty much suicide, but I'd do anything at this point to skip the 2 hour+ commute to and from Staten Island (one of the other boroughs, except we have virtually no mass transit. 2 hours for 20 fucking miles...) I mostly look at the lower income housing, but 5 million dollars for an apartment, to BUY it no less, is about average, in a place where some rooms can cost $10,000+ per night. And the people who buy those DO live in them, because the usually get them because they work in the area.

I work with stock traders all the time at work and you're right, a lot have multiple homes, but it's mostly like, a weekend house in Connecticut, and their apartment here. They don't have Bentleys, or islands, or even chauffeurs. That kinda thing is WAY above them. Shit, even most CEOs (I work for the 10th largest company in the world, and I refer to the CEO of the American ventures in this case, because I know the guy) don't have those things.

So please, spare me your delusions of what you think the wealthy live like, based off of what seems to be a VHS library of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" reruns and Cribs marathons. the fact that you got modded so high for such a vapid comment amazes me.

Re:Consider

[tgd]

Um.

$5m isn't all that expensive for NYC, and I'd bet the vast majority of $5m apartments are owner occupied. Knowing a number of people who live in NYC owning apartments within shooting distance of that price, they are typically not the people you just described.

Re:Consider

[sukotto]

I've had good luck with housing in Pavonia/Newport NJ (pretty much anywhere along the PATH line would probably be good) and also in Washington Heights (Near the GWB). Both areas had very reasonable rent and an easy commutes to the financial district.

Re:Consider

[ptbarnett]

I've had good luck with housing in Pavonia/Newport NJ (pretty much anywhere along the PATH line would probably be good) and also in Washington Heights (Near the GWB). Both areas had very reasonable rent and an easy commutes to the financial district.

I don't live in the NYC area, but I've been working there off-and-on for the past 6-7 years.

The Pavonia/Newport area has changed tremendously during that time. I typically stay at the Courtyard across from the mall and commute across the river to the financial district. There are at least two PATH train stations, but I actually prefer the ferry -- I take the light rail to either Hoboken or Exchange Place (Paulus Hook) and from there it's only about 15 minutes to Pier 11.

Re:Consider

[Animats]

You've clearly never looked at real estate prices in NYC, lived/worked in NYC, and might very well be delusional.

That's a bit much. There are thousands of people who have apartments in Manhattan but don't live there. They're in the city enough to need a reliable place to stay, but live elsewhere. It beats staying in a hotel, and, more important, you know it's available. NYC occasionally hits 100% hotel utilization, which can be inconvenient if you have an important meeting the next morning and are stuck in a motel in Fort Lee.

Some people rent out their city apartments when they're out of town. I've rented a very nice apartment in Southwark (London), near the London Eye, when staying there. Belonged to some minor movie producer.

Re:Consider

[DeepZenPill]

Not to nitpick, but the average is closer to $1.2 million. That's still a shitload, but not quite $5 million. And that's still a skewed number considering it represents only housing below West 116th Street and below East 96th Street. There's a large swath of housing north of there while still being much more expensive than the national norm, isn't quite in the $1 million range yet.

Re:Consider

[Anonymous Coward]

First,
Move to Jersey City. Its quite affordable and you will be closer to the village and the financial district than anyone above 50th street. Rents in the areas away from the water can be had for as little $600 if you get roommates.

Second, I have looked at apts in Manhattan. Small one bedrooms can be found for ~600k, the situation is not nearly as dreadful as you think. Out in Forest Hills you can find nice 1BR's for 350k. Clearly, not affordable on an intern's salary, but should be doable by the time you are in your mid-late 20's.

A lot of CEO's and traders are not that showy this is true. This is 1/2 because most of their wealth is tied up in their company's stock and other deferred comp, and at least in part because this was hard earned money and these guys were smart enough to get to the top of the pack, and therefore also smart enough to invest wisely and live at a reasonable level. My MD also wears Chanel suits nearly every day.

America discovers car elevators...

[LanceUppercut]

How long these have been in use in Europe? Thirty years? Twenty five? Even in Russia nobody looks at car elevators as something unusual...

Re:America discovers car elevators...

[Anonymous Coward]

Noooo! America MUST be the first... Benjamin Franklin INVENTED car elevators....

Has anyone over here patented the idea yet? Now we know what the dots are.

1) Look at what they're doing in Europe
2) ..... (patent that)
3) PROFIT!!!

Re:America discovers car elevators...

[G Fab]

You are talking about multi level parking spaces, right? where the car is placed on top of another car in a ground level garage? They've had those in the states for a while too.

I have never seen anything like what the articles describes in Europe or Russia, and I think I would have noticed. This is about bringing a car up thirty stories to your personal apartment.

Plenty of fodder to attack america with is you are really keen on doing so, but we are still the home of many inventions. We ain't Japan, but we produce our share of patents.

Re:America discovers car elevators...

[Anonymous Coward]

We ain't Japan, but we produce our share of patents.

You mean you fabricate your share of patents...

Re:America discovers car elevators...

[Anonymous Coward]

"... but we are still the home of many inventions..."

Actually, Americans seem terribly insecure about themselves, and regularly produce long lists of why they are better than anyone else in the world.

Their lists of inventions are a case in point. They are cherry-picked and hung about with caveats to make America sound first. For instance, you'd think Americans flew the first aircraft, and were the first to fly across the Atlantic, but both these statements are not true.

Here is a classic - http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/documents/WWII/g4-OL/g4-ol.htm

It shows a US official military history document, which claims that the Mulbury harbors that the British made for the D-Day invasions were in fact an "American Project".

Re:America discovers car elevators...

[Chibi Merrow]

Granted, I didn't read the whole thing, but from what I did read it says Mulberry A was an American project, which is correct. Mulberry A was the harbor built on Omaha beach for the use of American forces. No, the Americans didn't build the ships that were scuttled or the floating harbor components (hauling those from North America would have been silly, anyway.) but they did build the actual harbor on the beach using the parts provided by the British. So the document isn't claiming something untrue.

And it's not like they should be proud of it since the idiots said "Well this is just a temporary thing anyway." and didn't anchor it so it was destroyed in 1944 by a storm while the British one (Mulberry B) survived the storm just fine.

It's been done

[Animats]

This isn't the first. There's at least one apartment building in Dubai with a similar setup. There's CarLoft in Germany. There's one on Charlotte, NC. It's even been done in New York before; there was a writeup in Elevator World.

Re:It's been done

[Shadowplay00]

Elevator World?

Re:It's been done

[heytal]

India has had more sophisticated parking solutions than this. There are multi-level parking buildings, where one has to drive in a car into an elevator, lock it, and then the elevator would put the car in an available slot. Once you are back, the car can be retrieved from that slot, and ready for you to depart. All this for less than 50 cents an hour.

There are buildings which have car parks and motor cycle parking lots on the terrace, and use elevators to transfer the vehicles to the terrace.

Multiple news reports about the multi-level parking solutions could be found here.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/03/07/stories/2007030703420500.htm
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2002/03/28/stories/2002032801021900.htm
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/39396831.cms

Re:It's been done

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw these things all over in Japan. Wasn't even staying in the ritziest neighborhood.

Re:It's been done

[scatterbrained]

Uh, yeah, it's been done (since at least 1927...)

http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=35eastwackerdrive-chicago-il-usa

http://www.ci.chi.il.us/Landmarks/numbers/35EWacker.html

Re:It's been done

[FooAtWFU]

I recall the story of the robotic parking garage in Japan which I /think/ was something like this.... they got into a dispute with their software maker and everyone's cars got stuck in there while they fought over license issues in court. Fun times.

Re:It's been done

[Fulcrum of Evil]

I thought they decided to ditch the support, then balked at the cost of a repair when it broke somehow. That, or they didn't sell the owner the right to operate the garage themselves, but contracted out operators.

Terrible, terrible idea

[samwichse]

This is the worst idea I've seen in a long time. Just imagine the situation each weekday morning as half the tower's population is queuing up to leave.

It's not just like waiting for an elevator. This thing can't stop partway and take on more cars. You're looking at a full trip down then back up for each car that leaves. One car at a time. Not only that, but I can hardly imagine it will travel even close to the speed as an express elevator.

I foresee a lot of people getting sick of this thing and just parking elsewhere. On the plus side, that's a hell of a nice freight elevator when you need to move in/out. You could drive a forklift right from the ground floor to the apartment door.

Sam

Re:Terrible, terrible idea

[TooMuchToDo]

Most of the people who can afford this luxury aren't 9 to 5ers. They're independently wealthy, and operate on their own schedule. Because of this, I don't foresee contention for the elevator being an issue.

Re:Terrible, terrible idea

[G Fab]

We need blade runner style pyramid buildings, where the elevator brings you up and your drive back down.

(joking)

What would really rock was if we had community cars. Pay as you go, but go where you want.

Re:Terrible, terrible idea

[drsmithy]

What would really rock was if we had community cars. Pay as you go, but go where you want.

Cities in Europe have had this for nearly 20 years now. Heck, we even have some here in Australia . Surely equivalent companies exist in major US cities ?

Re:Terrible, terrible idea

[G Fab]

I know there is one such company in my town (though I have never actually seen one of these cars), but I'm talking about a much larger scale that requires tax money. Washington DC spends around 19k per citizen on its subway system. But in many cities, trains won't work well, so spend 10k per citizen on cars.

One hundred thousand community cars in Houston, for example. With some sort of security system in place. I think this would prove cheaper and more effective. And no one would missuse the system because people are morally wonderful.

Sounds good to me!

[rts008]

So, does this mean that if I get one of these Chelsea pads, the elevator comes with a Bentley? Sweet! w00t! even.

I've always wanted a Bentley, now if I can scrape up 4.7 mil for an apartment that comes with a Bentley filled elevator, I can finally have one!

One Word: Scooter

[BlackGriffen]

Though bicycling is preferable, even if it does get you sweaty.

Re:One Word: Scooter

[jawtheshark]

Yeah, it's yet another purchase, yet another insurance. Mileage is great of course. Evidently, the scooter isn't allowed on the bicycle road and thus would force me to take the road with all the cars, making it very very dangerous.

I don't even want to imagine how it handles on snow and ice... Even if I would take the bicycle road, do you really think that the bicycle road has a "priority status" for cleaning up? Nah, don't think so. Besides, my wife would kill me if I bought anything resembling a motorcycle. She already forces me to wear one of those silly bike helmets. Bah!

The day, I'll work in the same office as you, I'll promise to take the bike to work every day. I hope you'll sit within one metre of me.... :-D

Re:One Word: Scooter

[jackharrer]

Here's your answer. Shame it's still so expensive ;(

http://www.carver-worldwide.com/Home/Index.asp?nc=1

Re:One Word: Scooter

[monk.e.boy]

Wet wipes.

Run at, what, 70p a packet for 20 or so.

Re:One Word: Scooter

[plague3106]

Only if you're doing to work in one of those hippy grocery stores. Otherwise, its not an option to arrive at work sweaty.

Re:One Word: Scooter

[cayenne8]

"Besides, my wife would kill me if I bought anything resembling a motorcycle. She already forces me to wear one of those silly bike helmets. Bah!"

So, does your wife dress you in the mornings too?

:-)

Just joking, but, seriously dude, grow a 'pair'....you should never have to use a sentence with "My wife makes me....."

At the very least, if you want a motorcycle...go buy it and bring it home as a surprise. It is a lot easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission...if that is what you have to work with.

Re:One Word: Scooter

[jawtheshark]

Would work... if I had the driving license for it... I don't, it's going to be hard to convince that the motorcycle was an impulse buy if I don't have the license for it ;-)

Re:One Word: Scooter

[cayenne8]

"Would work... if I had the driving license for it... I don't, it's going to be hard to convince that the motorcycle was an impulse buy if I don't have the license for it ;-)"

Where do you live? I didn't have a license when I bought my first motorcycle. All I had to do was phone in to Geico, to buy insurance, and they faxed back proof to the dealership. I think that was ONLY to ride it home, if delivered, no insurance proof either.

Now, that being said...I didn't bother to get a motorcycle endorsement till about a year after I had the bike, although I was supposed to get one much sooner than that. But, I never had to prove I had a drivers license to buy a car, you don't have to have one to buy a motorcycle. You have to have a bike to learn to ride one to get a license, don't you? Hard to learn without a bike...so, it comes first.

So....go buy a bike, you get the license for it AFTER purchase.

:-)

Re:One Word: Scooter

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like you live in America, here in many countries you can't drive a car until you have license.

Re:One Word: Scooter

[jawtheshark]

That doesn't work in Europe. Believe me.... Well, I can *buy* a motorcycle, but I won't be allowed to drive it on public roads until I get a license. A car license isn't enough to be allowed to drive a motorcycle.

Re:One Word: Scooter

[inline_four]

my wife would kill me if I bought anything resembling a motorcycle Sorry to hear that. My wife "made" me stop cheaping out and get a new race bike 2 years ago. And then a year later, she "made" me book a rental bike in San Francisco so we could fly in and go two-up to see MotoGP at Laguna Seca on our vacation.

one at a time please!--Jetsons.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think my idea's better. The apartments go up and down and the cars stay put.

Re:one at a time please!--Jetsons.

[fodi]

Man, I wish I could mod you up. That cracked me up.
+1: Empathy

Learn something new everyday

[not-quite-rite]

You subscribe to Elevator World?

Wow

You have opened my eyes to a whole new world - Elevator Geeks!

I can picture it now....

"How to overclock your elevator in 5 easy steps..."

"Escalators - Are they the campers of the Elevator market?"

"Pictures of the top 10 elevators, and their designers - Sealed Section" (very naughty!)

Etc :P

Re:Learn something new everyday

[MarsMartian]

"How to overclock your elevator in 5 easy steps..." I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be dealing in steps..

Re:Learn something new everyday

[Dunbal]

Wow

You have opened my eyes to a whole new world - Elevator Geeks!

      I hear the centerfold is a pop-up...

Re:Learn something new everyday

[sukotto]

Pretty much every industry has its own trade journal.

Re:Learn something new everyday

[Anonymous Coward]

> I hear the centerfold is a pop-up...

You should see the live interactive version. $0.25 in any arcade, and you got all the Elevator Action you could handle.

Re:Learn something new everyday

[Bo'Bob'O]

If one person is interested in something, there is a web page.
If two people is interested in something, there is a news letter.
If three people are interested in something, there is a magazine.
If four people are interested in something, there is a convention.

Re:Learn something new everyday

[Johnny Mnemonic]

If no one is interested in it, there's a blog.

Hmph...

[TC1116]

I'm not impress until I see the rotating parking lot in I,Robot.

"Very High Tech"????

[Garridan]

What are the editors thinking? How is this "very high tech"? It's a frikkin' elevator. OMG, you can put a car in it? Stop the presses! Somebody came up with a new way to get money out of rich people who like throwing money away! And it uses pulleys!

Re:"Very High Tech"????

[SpectreBlofeld]

It's a pun, dude. 'High' tech. Elevator. Height. Up.

Re:"Very High Tech"????

[Igmuth]

Yes, we know it uses pulleys, but does it run Linux?

Re:"Very High Tech"????

[Anonymous Coward]

And it uses pulleys!

Pulleys? In a garage full of of $250K+ cars? Totally wrong.

In a neighborhood like that it'll have hydraulics. Big pistons, you know. and a huge prostate\\\\\\\\ hydraullic flux transducer.

The more expensive the parking, the bigger the pistons. Very phallic, for the jock-strap disabled.

Re:"Very High Tech"????

[Garridan]

No, see. A space elevator is very high tech. This thing only gets a few storeys off the ground. I can jump that. Who gives a shit?

Forgive me...

[Xeth]

...but how is a high-capacity elevator high tech? I always assumed that being "high tech" involved overcoming some sort of engineering or scientific hurdle. A wrist computer, flying car, video cell phone, etc.

Is there any reason this thing couldn't've been built with 1950s elevator technology?

Re:Forgive me...

[SpectreBlofeld]

Where do elevators go?

Up... High... ...it's a pun.

Re:Forgive me...

[Xeth]

Yes, but the crux of a pun is the double meaning. Upon seeing a flying car, the joke could be "It's high tech alright. Very high tech." But I really doubt that most people would associate an ordinary elevator with "technology". They've been around for over a century.

Perhaps we could be discussing the latest developments in steam locomotives, as well?

Re:Forgive me...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but how is a high-capacity elevator high tech? I always assumed that being "high tech" involved overcoming some sort of engineering or scientific hurdle. A wrist computer, flying car, video cell phone, etc.

Is there any reason this thing couldn't've been built with 1950s elevator technology?

Vaaaaaaaaaaroaaaooooouggggggghhhhh. That's the sound of a late-2000s elevator going high over your head.

Re:Forgive me...

[TimNC]

I'm not exactly sure how this is high tech either unless it's just the height involved. They have car elevators in Tokyo already for parking cars.

Re:Forgive me...

[Spacezilla]

Elevators are definitely technology IMO, they're just not NEW technology. :)

Re:Forgive me...

[Anonymous Coward]

They could have built it back in the 50's.
But they'd never get the old man's Buick to lift.

Re:Forgive me...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it was a play on words, since it's a "high rise", BAHAHAHAHAHA funny.

Re:Forgive me...

[hackerjoe]

Okay, so it was a stupid pun. We're agreed then!

Driving in Manhattan

[Mikey-San]

If you're dumb enough to drive in Manhattan, you probably need a machine to park your car for you.

And when the elevator breaks down...

[dacut]

... you're stuck with your Bentley in your flat, 23 stories up. All dressed up and nowhere to go.

Re:And when the elevator breaks down...

[Anonymous Coward]

... you're stuck with your Bentley in your flat, 23 stories up. All dressed up and nowhere to go.

Well... there's always your Bentley. (Cue slow-dance music)

Re:And when the elevator breaks down...

[Gmerk]

Don't worry. I hear they only have 50% down time.

Re:Your all missing the point - it's about securit

[scott_karana]

Your $250K car is really worth a $4M elevator?

Where do your neighbours park?

[IBBoard]

Is it just me or did that video in the flash page not show where your neighbours managed to park?

It's all well and good having a lift to your door on a higher floor (although they could have made it a bit taller and a bit more worth it than those few stories) but what if you live in the area of the building that was blacked out? There only seemed to be the one car lift, so you're stuck walking up the stairs while you get to hear your neighbour revving their car in and out of their garage and car lift every morning and evening!

Japanese Car Elevators

[unidyneVII]

Japan, in its urban areas, has had elevators like this for efficient parking-garage-packing for ages.

Re:Japanese Car Elevators

[adnonsense]

Yes, but they're just plain parking places, not actually integrated into the apartment buildings.

Similar building in Berlin

[Anonymous Coward]

This has already been done in Germany, and the whole building revolves around the concept of the garage: http://www.carloft.de/

Since when are elevators high tech?

[Anonymous Coward]

What, does it come with a Japanese robot valet or something?

Re:Your all missing the point - it's about securit

[beh]

And - and secure underground parking would not solve this issue?

Besides - now you don't just have a gas guzzling car, but you can waste loads of energy just getting it up to your floor.
(Unless, of course, you'd want the house to make Al Gore's home electricity consumption look "moderate")

The whole sounds pretty braindead to me (plus - I don't want to see what happens when the first depressed rich guy commits suicide by driving his car out through the wall on the 10th or so floor -- structural damage to the building; not to mention passers by underneath; ...)

On top of that, I'm not sure I'd even want the exhaust gas from the car (just the bit from driving in/out of the elevator) in my flat.

Oh - and if I have USD4.7m to spend on a flat - what makes you think I have a one-car household; or will I get my own personal parking deck holding 3 or 4 cars)?

so now..

[Twin Pines Mall]

*in Dr Evil's voice* welcome to my above-ground lair !!

Re:Your all missing the point - it's about securit

[jimicus]

Oh - and if I have USD4.7m to spend on a flat - what makes you think I have a one-car household; or will I get my own personal parking deck holding 3 or 4 cars)?

You don't have a one car household. You have an enormous house way out in the countryside with lots of cars - but you want the convenience of an apartment right near the centre of the city.

'Course, you didn't get that rich by buying property right at the time when it looked like house prices were going to collapse.

Bentleys

[youthoftoday]

"As long as there are un-bought Bentleys, there will be laywers"

Already in Japan

[amake]

While they don't go straight to people's apartments, there have been vertical, elevator-style parking garages in Japan for years. (example)

8000 lbs?

[joetheappleguy]

Some of these new porker SUV's like the Hummer H2 already have a curb weight of close to 7000 lbs. Add 4 or 5 passengers and their crap and you can easily exceed that 8000lb limit. Anyone who would buy a useless contraption like an H2 is exactly in the same demographic as someone who would want an elevator for their whip.

Re:Your all missing the point - it's about securit

[Jeff DeMaagd]

That's what I was thinking. Such a huge elevator shaft is such a waste of floor space too, unless it works as a service elevator too.

I saw a copy of this magazine at the store

[commodoresloat]

It was right next to Oatmeal Enthusiast

Re:Your all missing the point - it's about securit

[timmarhy]

err your paying 4.7M for an apartment WITH an elevator, you dumbass, not just for the elevator.

Re:Your all missing the point - it's about securit

[timmarhy]

"And - and secure underground parking would not solve this issue?"

no, it wouldn't. there's still the oppertunity for someone to attack you in some dark corner while walking through the car park. the "security" i've seen in car parks is shitful. much safer to stay locked in your car until you arrive inside your own apartment.

chances are someone rich enough to afford this has made plenty of enemies in the process, so i can see the advantage to it.

Re:Your all missing the point - it's about securit

[Heir Of The Mess]

$4.7mil apartment! With that kind of money I probably have a Merc SLK65 for short trips, a CLK65 for the wife, an S500 for taking the whole family on day trips, an SUV for multi day trips or shopping. Also need some space to work on my Ferrari as it requires some maintenance, oh and I need 3 minis for pulling bank jobs to keep me in the money.

Now how many garages do I get? 1 oh....bummer

Re:Your all missing the point - it's about securit

[Eivind]

It's silly. The current standard of having a parking-garage in the basement and a private elevator up to your apartments is better in several ways:

Space high up is worth more than space in the basement, because people prefer living on the 10th floor instead of in the basement.

A private elevator that opens directly at your apartment is *less* risky than this, did you look at the floorplans ? Sure there's a garage on your floor-level, you do however need to exit that garage, and go trough the stairwell to enter your actual apartment. Said stairwell is accessible to everyone in the building. (it needs to be, for fire-security reasons)

A private elevator is *quicker*, quite simply because it doesn't need to lift 8000lbs.

So, what are you going to prefer:

Driving into the basement-garage, stop at the turner-plate, enter elevator, wait 20 seconds and be in your apartment.

Or Driving into the car-lift. Wait a minute. Driving into your garage. Exiting and locking the garage. Go trough the stairwell. Unlock and enter your apartment.

It's a no-brainer....

Energy Efficiencies

[Doc Ruby]

Raising and lowering all those cars probably would consume a lot of energy. While the address uses Con Edison, one of the most expensive utilities in the country.

However, if the elevators used regenerative braking, they wouldn't consume much energy at all. Lowering the cars could charge a battery that raises the next car. Such efficient tech could be applied to all NYC's many elevators, even at lower loads per trip, if it became cheap, reliable and maintainable. Overall the energy saved could be very large.

In the meantime, Americans will proceed to evolve to a point where we never leave our cars. We'll need the wheels just to drive around the batteries for all our mobile devices. Especially as we'll need to stay inside a generated mediasphere all the time, rather than face the ugly reality of a world we've twisted around that growing consumer lifestyle. We'll probably average a kilowatt or two consumption, undocking our personal carts from our larger cars to redock into our office cubicles.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

you can make someone buy groceries for you

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.terrorisland.net/strips/001.html

Never mind the penthouse.

[sa1lnr]

Does it go to the basement?

Two words

[xarak]

Rush.
Hour.

Spend just 45 minutes in rush hour traffic then 1 hour waiting for your neighbours to park their cars.

Paying for convenience, meeting a need

[BenEnglishAtHome]

Your point is well taken. Still, for a USD$5 tip, a dweller in such a place can skip the half-hour it would kill to pick out everything and lug it upstairs. Maybe they have something better to do.

Such a service would be a godsend if I were really sick. Back when I used a pharmacy that delivered, I tended to need them most when I was ill. My disabled mom could really use something like this.

Also, there's many a day that I'm simply not in a cheerful enough mood to subject the rest of society to my attitude. I'd be doing my neighbors a favor if I didn't come out of the apartment, taking a chance on running into that rude kid that lives down the hall, the surly teen stocker, and the annoying nosy neighbor, any one of whom might be treated to an unwanted bit of conflict when we came into contact. On those days when I'm not feeling particularly polite, I tend to stay in; I think it's the polite thing to do.

What I'm saying is that while I wouldn't use such a service very often, I can think of times when it would be appropriate. I can also think of lots of people who would make the world a better place if they'd just stay in their apartment and never come out.

Fumes

[kilo_foxtrot84]

Internal combustion engines put out a lot of exhaust material that kinda make sustained life smelly/impossible if they're on long enough in places that aren't well ventilated. Do you really want your apartment reeking of exhaust fumes? Do you really want a carbon monoxide generator in your apartment?

Re:Fumes

[b0s0z0ku]

Do you really want your apartment reeking of exhaust fumes? Do you really want a carbon monoxide generator in your apartment?

Even if you turn the motor off before entering the apartment, there's always some spillage/odor of petrol and oil. Not a nice smell for a $5m apartment -- quick! get the Febreze!

Re:Your all missing the point - it's about securit

[Dunbal]

no bitch can key your $250k car and no homeless bum can jump you in the car park.

      They can always get you at the supermarket/gas station/mall. People who drive Bentleys usually live where there are security guards. I doubt very much they were getting their cars "keyed" at HOME.

Re:Your all missing the point - it's about securit

[Dunbal]

'Course, you didn't get that rich by buying property right at the time when it looked like house prices were going to collapse.

      If you're worried about a few $100,000 here or there, you're obviously not rich enough. Property prices have been "on the verge of collapse" for years now. But if you need the property, you need the property. So what if it loses 30% of its value. You can always justify it by saying "well I needed it for X/Y/Z so we'll just call the difference "rent". And if you end up losing a bit when you sell it, you can always get your accountant to write it off against taxes.

      You were perhaps referring to those people who earned a bit of money (in real estate?) and THINK they are rich, perhaps?

Personal experience...

[ohgood]

I previously lived in a small hick town http://www.meridianstar.com/ that had a similar 'elevator garage'. The numbskulls in charge of city spending were sold (or bought) on the idea that three parking garages with elevator only access (for cars) was a way to eliminate parking problems downtown. Now, imagine Aunt Bee with half the soccer team going for pizza. They arrive in their typical deep south suburban, hand the car jockey the keys and walk three blocks for pizza. After filling themselves and sludging three blocks back IN THE RAIN, they find there is a line (queue) of folks waiting on THEIR suburban. Now, the estimated time of top to bottom service (oh hush) of the elevator was 6 minutes, including putting a vehicle on at either end. That means there is at the very least a 6 minute, or 12 minute wait depending on where the elevator is, and your position in line for your car. Oh, and if you forgot something (ever done that) and want to retrieve it before departing the 'garage', you STILL have to wait all that time again. Needless to say the garages were abandoned (paid for mind you) for about 15 years. Someone decided they could be retrofitted (enclosed) to store medical records and now they are gov't white elephants again. Just with the added expense of the retrofit. Note, there is no reference to the old parking garages found in their articles search. Odd, isn't it ?

Re:Your all missing the point - it's about securit

[moosesocks]

(Unless, of course, you'd want the house to make Al Gore's home electricity consumption look "moderate")

Offtopic, and no longer true. He renovated the house, and is now seeking a LEED certification for it. Even at the start, he'd been purchasing enough alt-energy credits to offset the energy consumption of his own home.

It's also not particularly fair to compare Gore's 'home' to a vacation house owned by the Bush family. Although I'm typically not a huge fan of dazzlingly wealthy politicians, I'd sort of expect a former-vice-president to own a fairly large home.

Re:Your all missing the point - it's about securit

[moosesocks]

At those prices, you could keep a teem of chauffeurs on call 24/7 for several years.

Or you could buy a metrocard. Here's New York's dirty little secret: Everyone rides the subway. It's the great equalizing factor of New York. NYC traffic can be awful and unpredictable.

What about an electric bike?

[justthinkit]

They can be had for $800 or so. Still gives you exercise, and wind in your face (main reason motorcyclists ride, apparently). Most economical powered vehicle to operate. Narrow enough to pass cars so you get to the front of the line at red lights. Great for assisting you up hills so you don't arrive to work sweaty. And speaking of that, the sweating happens when you are out of shape for your commute. Within two or three weeks, or less, your body will have adapted and you won't need to sweat (based on my 40 years of bicycle commuting experience).

Re:Greener than almost every other US city

[colinnwn]

It already is one of the greenest cities in the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_New_York_City That doesn't mean more couldn't be done though.

Re:Your all missing the point - it's about securit

[petermgreen]

Presumablly one lift could be shared between several apartments and also used for moving large items other than vehircles up and down the building.

Finally!

[teh_commodore]

It's about damn time all those techno-nerds did somethin' worthwhile.

Hey, garages in your condo is a good idea

[mollog]

This garage in your condo idea is fantastic. There are some obvious technical issues, but there should be some technological solutions.

Seems like this would encourage people to drive a Smart Car or other small, lightweight vehicle. The teaser said Bently, but in reality, this idea works best with something like the Mini Cooper and a hybrid. I would think that a H3 or an Expedition would be left to the parking garages.

You could drive your EV or pluggable hybrid up to your flat and charge it up overnight. Driving it off an onto the lift won't create nasty exhaust fumes.

Re:Hey, garages in your condo is a good idea

[cayenne8]

"eems like this would encourage people to drive a Smart Car or other small, lightweight vehicle. The teaser said Bently, but in reality, this idea works best with something like the Mini Cooper and a hybrid. I would think that a H3 or an Expedition would be left to the parking garages."

Well, if you can afford the pricetag on a place like this ($4.x Million), I doubt you're too worried about cash flow and can easily afford a car higher on the food chain than the Mini or a hybrid.

At that level, you've driving luxury/exotic...if you even drive yourself at all.

I'd say possibly a Tesla if you're wanting to go electric, but at that level of wealth, you get what you want.

Re:Hey, garages in your condo is a good idea

[architimmy]

Actually, it's probably a good idea to try and improve building efficiencies as much as possible. Parking on a residential floor is a costly use of square footage. In addition to a large lift you have to provide several hundred square feet for each parking spot. That could easily add up to the same square footage as several units. Which means in financial terms you aren't realizing potential revenue and in terms of efficient use of the building footprint you're not providing the same number of units for people to live in. Considering the costs and potential pollution that goes into constructing a building, not using the footprint efficiently is a decidedly "un-green" thing to do. There's a real reason why urban buildings are very different from suburban ones.

I would imagine that a more likely driving factor in this case was the site's adjacency to the water. I don't work in NYC so I don't know the geotechnical specifics of Manhatten, but if it's silty soil you're going to have a lot of water penetration which means pumps running 24/7 and limitations on how deep you can go. I would imagine the developer simply saw this issue as a justification for doing something as exorbitant and unique as having people park on their floor. More of a marketing gimmick that anything else. A green building has bike storage, public lockers and showers, and is normally situated to make using public transportation easy and practical.

Re:Hey, garages in your condo is a good idea

[eugene ts wong]

The developer did this for the same reason that any developer added a private garage to the home: it's easier to use the car that way. When you can just drive into your home, then you'll be happier, regardless of the environmental consequences.

already blocked?

[m0llusk]

Building codes in NYC are very strict, and my understanding is none of these plans have been or are likely to be approved because of the inherent fire risk associated with operable vehicles. Garages require excessive additional fire protections already, and fire is one of the greatest risks to life in tall buildings. With enough shielding and sprinkler cover it might be possible to pull this off, but even for the super rich that might not be cost effective.

Re:already blocked?

[Rick Genter]

Probably not an issue for the building in question.

I used to work for a telco carrier that had (has) a facility in the carrier hotel at 111 8th Avenue, which is in the same neighborhood. That building's freight elevator had a capacity closer to 80,000 pounds. I don't know what the actual capacity was; I do know that 18-wheelers would drive into the elevator, then be brought up to the 8th floor where there was a loading dock that equipment (telephone switches, storage arrays, etc.) could be offloaded.

The building was built at around the same time as the Empire State Building and was of similar technology: lots of brick and concrete. The floor was concrete a couple of feet thick. When a semi came up to the 8th floor and drove out of the elevator and into the loading dock area, the people working on the floor couldn't tell.

We had an EMC storage array installed and EMC started asking questions about load factors for the floor. When we told them where we were, they stopped asking.

The biggest issue with the loading dock was the vehicle exhaust; there were large exhaust fans and ducts to make sure everyone didn't die of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Re:already blocked?

[m0llusk]

That is very interesting information as I have never heard of such large vehicles being lifted like that, but the criteria for residential permits are much more strict than commercial. You are right that the basic technical challenges have been solved. The problem is agreeing on an acceptable level of safety. Vehicles do burst into flames from time to time, and this happening part way up a residential tower full of people who might be disabled makes for a potentially challenging situation for emergency responders. In our current terror-whipped state it is also worth pointing out that car bombs are some of the most common and deadly weapons being used.

actually i take that back

[begbiezen]

the $45 is for round trip and my experience is with commuting to and from westchester county. I forgot how cheap it is to go to jersey.
Yeah, you're right, (depending on where you live) NYC transit can be pretty cheap. a little off topic, but does the subway in toronto get as hot and in the summer as the subway in NYC?

5th element for real

[heroine]

The old geazers who remember 5th element can finally live it. Now if only the $4.7 million bought walk in closets. $4.7 million won't even buy a house in Calif*.

Yes

[Mr 44]

http://www.flexcar.com/

Death Trap....

[endlesshaze]

I hope there is some sort of safety mechanism that doesn't allow a car to drive onto the elevator without the elevator....that would hurt.

Re:Death Trap....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they have these high-tech devices to keep people safe.

Re:Death Trap....

[endlesshaze]

thanks for the safety lesson...

Right of Way

[Maigus]

Fantastic thought. After you spend more than a trillion dollars buying the right of way for this super train, let's get right on that.

Don't take my cynisim wrong, I really like the idea, but lets think about it:

Security would immediately be as bad as airports. Or worse - imagine someone derailing a 300+ MPH train near a dense region.

It would take a couple decades to build to the point that the first trains are running and they wouldn't be going anywhere useful yet. (Light rail in Seattle has taken nearly 10 years already and no one is riding it yet - this kind of idea is a whole different league.)

You couldn't build out on existing RR right of way. High speed trains like those in Japan require a completely different infrastrucure (obviously) and would require space that likely doesn't fit in the existing right of way.

It just goes on.

Oh - and the crossbar of your H - how do you plan to send a high speed train through the rockies?

Re:Right of Way

[jamar0303]

...The Japanese make it look so easy. Zero-fatality record, always on time, stuff like that. Oh well, it's always the same- a vision looks perfect until you hit the big roadblocks. On the last topic- I thought there were already trains running through the Rockies.

Re:Right of Way

[Jimithing DMB]

Fantastic thought. After you spend more than a trillion dollars buying the right of way for this super train, let's get right on that.

Not necessarily that big of a problem. You may be able to lease right of ways and you may be able to pick some of them up at firesale prices. On the other hand, you may not. With gas prices going through the roof you can be quite sure that the big railways are wanting to capitalize on their sunk costs. I'm starting to see ads on TV for Norfolk Southern. They do freight. Presumably they want to get the attention of people in charge of shipping at various companies and let them know that the railroad is a viable option.

I'm still waiting for the Norfolk and Waypal overnight by train service.

Re:Right of Way

[2names]

Fantastic thought. After you spend more than a trillion dollars buying the right of way for this super train, let's get right on that.

We won't have to buy it, the Government can use Eminent Domain to just take it.

Leads to great idea for a new car...

[SuperKendall]

In the meantime, Americans will proceed to evolve to a point where we never leave our cars. We'll need the wheels just to drive around the batteries for all our mobile devices

So then, a great idea for a new car - includes a Segway dock so you simply drive your Segway right into the car, whereupon the Segway "merges" with the car and you are reclined into a seat! Or, perhaps you drive standing astride your Segway...

Joke or not? I leave it up to you and your imagination!

Re:Leads to great idea for a new car...

[Doc Ruby]

You asked for it... just hotrod the new Opel, and you got it!

Safety?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats one garage where you won't want to keep it in gear.
What happens if you accidentally drive through the garage door when the lifts at the bottom?

Garage Band

[drwho]

What's the big deal? I've livedinagarageforfreebefore,why should I pay $4.7m to do so?

Followed the next year by...

[DrYak]

SimBrothel or something.

"Whorehouse Tycoon" ?

And the next year, opensource hacker develop a GPLed, SDL-based clone called...

FreeSex !
 
...Just don't ask where they fit the penguins in the picture.

Re:Your all missing the point - it's about securit

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Dude, this is Manhattan - people park their Rolls on the street. Besides, if you have all that stuff, you probably have a house in the Hamptons too.

Elevator World.com

[westlake]

You have opened my eyes to a whole new world - Elevator Geeks!

"The Publisher for the International Building Transportation Industry" has a web page, of course: Elevator World.com

Just for fun, you'll find fifty years of elevator-geek humor in cartoon form. Collections

It's an Audi, not a Bently

[robo45h]

Are you completely blind? (I'm sure this will result in the same response as trolling, but I'm not)

Sweet!

[SuperKendall]

Ahh, the internet. Is there anything not thought of and having a web page now?

Re:Sweet!

[Doc Ruby]

Yes, but I haven't published its website yet ;).

Bike lock tips from Amsterdam

[pimpimpim]

In Amsterdam, you easily pay more on locks than on your bike, since no matter what quality your bike, it is worth a default price for the junkies that use them as a source of income, it used to be about 25-50 euro when I left.

All locks can be opened if enough effort is spent. But that is an important "if": you can make your bike the least likely to get stolen by increasing the effort needed to open all the locks on your lock. In general:
* Use at least 3 locks, as different as possible. Thieves specialize in one of them, using different ones will mean a lot more time to be spent opening them. Also, just the view of the sheer amount of locks on your bike might scare potential thieves away.
* Always make sure both your frame and front wheel are locked. If one of them is not bound to either an other part of the bike or to a pole, that part is likely to get stolen. Most thieves just detach unlocked frames and front wheels from separate bikes, and combine them afterwards. That way they don't even need to break open any lock. If you have an expensive saddle, try to lock it as well.
* Locks with cylindrical keys are an easy goal for the infamous BIC pen trick.
* Something similar counts for coiled cable locks. No matter how thick these coils are, they consist of tiny metal cables, each of which can be cut with household scissors. "Armored" versions of these locks exist, with a metal shell around the coil, but this just means that you don't know how thick the actual coil is. These locks look impressive, but the metal shell can be bent, and you yourself probably even don't know how thin the metal coil is inside the shell.
* Popular in Amsterdam at the moment are the good old chain locks. And for city bikes the frame locks. (The latter will probably not fit on mountain- and sports bikes).
* If you are in a city with a known bike-theft problem, don't leave 2000 euro bikes on the street, no matter what kind of locks you use. Make sure you have a boring bike that looks worn out, for your daily use.

I had a bike in Utrecht and a bike in Amsterdam, both protected in the same way and both of them didn't get stolen. The bike in Utrecht was parked next to the central station, and left at the same spot over the weekends even.

Re:Your all missing the point - it's about securit

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn English or get the fuck out of the America, you dumb fucking spic!

It's "You're" or "You are", not "Your". Additionally, you wanted a semi-colon not a hyphen, and I is capitalized no matter where it is in the sentence.

LEARN ENGLISH OR GET THE FUCK OUT, YOU DUMB CUNT.

s/grarage/garbage/

[edittard]

Not really. If the counterweight really is exactly the same weight as the Bentley + elevator, then the energy to lower the empty elevator (i.e., lift the counterweight) would be the same as it would be to lift the Bentley

All the tinking's been left to me as usual. You just need something to counter the counterweight. Now what needs to go down in an apartment building that we could make use of? Trash, bathwater and of course, poo.