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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."
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.
TIAEAE!
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?
khasim (12/9/06): In a blind taste test, more people preferred Coke over the Pepsi that I had previously pissed in.
Sad thing is that, in the case of most people on this site, $4.7 million is easier to obtain than a girlfriend.
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.
I would totally pay for one if i had the cash.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
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...
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
It would be much more cost effective to pay somebody else to haul your groceries up the stairs.
Though bicycling is preferable, even if it does get you sweaty.
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
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
...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?If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
... you're stuck with your Bentley in your flat, 23 stories up. All dressed up and nowhere to go.
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....
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!
You guys seriously have home delivery from a store in your own fucking building? This is why you guys are so fat!
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.
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.
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.