改变世界的12家公司

    9. 奥的斯电梯公司

    1854年，数百人齐聚纽约世博会（World’s Fair）中心由钢和玻璃建成的水晶宫展厅（Crystal Palace），观看艾利莎•奥的斯的惊险表演。他站在四层楼高的平台上，仅靠一根绷紧的绳索将自己吊起。在向他的助手示意之前，奥的斯度过了激动人心的时刻。他凭借绳索在空中盘旋，而一把张开的剑把绳索一分为二。观众随之倒吸了一口冷气。平台震动起来，但是并未坠落。因为一组隐藏的弹簧片与护栏相啮合，奇迹般地固定住了奥的斯的“安全电梯”。吸引观众的窍门要归功于P.T巴纳姆。在整整一个月的时间里，他聘用奥的斯每天多次表演这一特技。而这个改变世界的发明要归功于奥的斯。1853年，他在纽约杨克斯一个破产的弹簧床垫工厂创办了奥的斯电梯公司（Otis Elevator Company）。安全电梯使建筑高度不断增加：从位于纽约的20层熨斗大厦（Flatiron Building，1902年安装奥的斯电梯）、到10年后的60层伍尔沃斯大厦（Woolworth Building）、再到1931年的103层帝国大厦（Empire State Building）。正是凭借这种快速可靠的客梯和货梯，使高层办公大厦和城市天际线能够正常运转，使高楼大厦和顶层公寓成为身份的象征，使尴尬的电梯对话成为亿万人的每日通勤仪式。后来，钢索取代了纤维缆索。电子按钮在很大程度上取代了人工操作员。但是，今天的安全电梯与160年前令世界博览会观众喝彩的电梯几乎毫无二致。在此期间，现隶属于联合技术公司（United Technologies UTX -0.70% ）的奥的斯电梯公司仍然在主导着它所开创的电梯行业。—Clifton Leaf

    9. Otis Elevator

    The year is 1854. Hundreds gather in the New York Crystal Palace, the iron-and-glass exhibition hall at the center of the World’s Fair, to watch a man standing on a platform four stories high, suspended by a single taut rope. A few electrifying moments pass before Elisha Otis signals his assistant, hovering by the rope with an outstretched sword, to sever the cable in two. The crowd gasps. The platform jolts—but doesn’t fall, as a pair of hidden leaf springs engage the rails, keeping Otis’s “safety elevator” miraculously in place. Credit the showmanship to P.T. Barnum, who hired Otis to perform this stunt several times a day for a whole month. Credit the world-changing invention to Otis, who founded his elevator company in an old Yonkers, N.Y., bedstead factory the year before. The safety elevator made it possible for buildings to climb ever skyward—from the 20-story Flatiron Building in New York (equipped with Otis elevators in 1902) to the nearly 60-story Woolworth Building a decade later, to the 103-story Empire State Building in 1931. It was this fast, reliable people-and-freight mover that made possible the office tower and the city skyline, that made high-rises and penthouses symbols of status, that made awkward elevator talk a daily rite of passage for hundreds of millions of souls. Fiber rope shifted to steel cables. Electronic buttons have largely replaced flesh-and-blood operators. But the safety elevator of today is much the same as the one that wowed the World’s Fair audience 16 decades ago. And for all that time, the Otis Elevator Company, now part of United Technologies UTX -0.70% , has dominated the industry it created. —Clifton Leaf