Jump!
We all need a friend like Hazeema, willing to push us into a lift shaft.
Allow me to post an instructional video below about the paternoster lift in the Sheffield Arts Tower. I used to ride it all the time and it gave me the greatest joy. Whenever I go back to the city, I try to have a blast on this beauty.
PATERNOSTER! Damn I want a go on one of those things.
In the US, they were formerly (1960s) used in parking garages, but I never saw one in an office or retail building and they have long since been banned.
Late Literature Nobel Prize winner Heinrich Böll starts his brilliant satirical short story “Doktor Murkes gesammeltes Schweigen” ([“Murke’s Collected Silences”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murke%27s_Collected_Silences)) with the protagonist venturing on his daily dare of not stepping off the paternoster and surviving its change of direction. He needs that daily dose of adrenaline.
Looks like John is aspiring high with this paternoster beginning…
As he bloody well should! Someone’s going to be the first web-comic Nobel-laureate!
Your lettering game is on point. Nice clouds.
Missed that the first time. Jeeze, you’d think I’d know by now that there is very little in these panels that don’t have a purpose.
That looks to me like an injury waiting to happen.
I’ve seen video of a vertical moving chain ladder contraption in an industrial setting. Similar in concept, but just a chain with alternating steps and handles in a sort of shaft. Looked dangerous as hell to me. I tried to find the video, but failed and it’s late.
It’s fine as long as you don’t tit about on it.
These automated ladders are self-titting.
I believe the technical term for such contraptions is “titillators”
It looks like a lawsuit waiting to happen — that’s why we don’t have any in America. This is amazing AF, I’ve never heard of these at all. Truly England is a place of marvels.
There are only three left in the UK (all in England): University of Sheffield, University of Essex and Northwick Park Hospital in London. They were a bit of a vogue in the late 60s/early 70s for institutional buildings. Continental Europe, especially Germany and what is now the Czech Republic had a longer tradition.
Handy having one in a hospital.
There’s one in the service corner of the parking structure in Marina City towers in Chicago. It doesn’t have a car like this, just an open platform. I was both drawn to and terrified of it. Apparently it is for valet parking:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CEpp2P-KuA
There’s also one in the Humanities Building at Rummidge University, although that’s fictional.
Oh yes, I was about to mention that David Lodge novel. Rummidge is fairly closely based on Birmingham Uni, of course.
Aha! That’s what I was thinking about, although it isn’t the video I remember. Same thing though.
Paternoster, you’re the one
You make lift-riding so much fun
Paternoster, Claire’s not so fond of you
Paternoster joy of joys
When Claire can’t leave you, she makes noise
Paternoster, you’re not her friend it’s true
I don’t think we have any paternosters on our end of the Atlantic and they’re quite fascinating. So it’s less of an elevator and more of an escalator or automated dumb waiter for people? Also would it be a stretch to imagine that the paternoster is going to end up being very helpful to Lottie and Claire in their upcoming escapades?
As RJ mentioned above, there is very little on these panels that go to waste!
Chekhov’s paternoster!
What if someone or something is only half in? Seems like it would be not so good.
As far as I can tell, the traditional arrangement is for the steps on both the car and the floor to be flaps that can pivot upwards and prevent small items, toes, etc. from being caught. I think some surviving installations now have electronic sensors than can stop the lift, too.
Anyway, here’s a photo of what happens if you try to take a bicycle in one:https://www.facebook.com/leedsalumni/posts/as-its-april-fools-day-we-thought-youd-enjoy-this-shot-of-the-time-a-student-in-/2250814334972210/
Hazeema seems like a very nice girl. I’m happy to see that Claire has finally found some good friends, changing her studies was a really great idea. I think I would be scared to death by something like a paternoster.
I went on a paternoster just once, when I went for an interview at the University of Leeds (I think) in the 1980s. By the time I ended up at the University of Birmingham a few years later (long story) both the paternosters there had been closed. I think the library one was still there, hidden behind a panel on the wall.
Did the Arts Tower paternoster never make it into Giant Days? Glad you’ve made up for that now, John.
Not to brag but I’ve been on the paternoster lifts in Sheffield AND Prague, but in both cases I was too scared to go all the way over the top
The wait is over. The Arts Tower paternoster has finally appeared in the Tackleverse.
I can only imagine the horror that would have ensued if Esther had tried to use it in her more floaty goth finery.
Without the extra context provided today I was well confused when reading this in the PDF. I suppose I could have googled Paternoster but, y’know, I didn’t.
From wiki:
‘In September 1975, the paternoster in Newcastle University’s Claremont Tower was taken out of service after a passenger was killed when a car left its guide rail at the top of its journey and forced the two cars ascending behind it into the winding room above.’
!
I went to Newcastle Uni and this story was explained to every new student in the computing department (which was in Claremont Tower) even though the device had been removed more than twenty years previously.
In all honesty removing something like this because of one accident seems a bit odd – people get killed on stairs and even normal lifts too.
Good to see Claire settling in at Sheffield. I suppose it’s unlikely she’s taking Intro to Archaeology with Professor Wooten, right?
Hmm. I suppose enough years have passed that Daisy might have her doctorate.
I believe the department has been closed! It’s very sad if it has.
It’s apparently staying open for another two years while they pass the final cohort of students through. The staff are still hoping to save it beyond that. https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/education/university-of-sheffield-archaeologists-given-two-year-reprieve-from-departmental-closure-and-staff-will-not-be-made-redundant-3708017
Tom Scott made a video of what happens when the paternoster reaches the top of the circuit, because of course he did.
https://youtu.be/YgJBD1wf-YQ
I remember the paternoster well from my stint at Sheffield University in 1991/92 (excellent history courses by Prof Kershaw (who once plugged one of his books with “I´ve got children your age – I need the money!”) and Dr. Steven Salter.
The paternoster is very safe but you shoud not tarry and get on it in the right moment.
called paternoster because if you’re going to ride it, you should pray to God the Father (specifically, without double-mindedness) before boarding.
Can’t fool me. The Great Encyclopædia of the Internet says it’s because it’s like a string of rosary beads.
A paternoster lift – you’re spoiling us, John! Back in the mid-60’s I worked for Elliott Automation in Borehamwood. When they opened the new office block it had a paternoster, which we were duly shown how to use. I remember several of us standing on the top floor discussing what would happen if one failed to get off and went over the top – would you come back down right-way up or upside down? One of my colleagues leapt onboard with a cry of “lets find out” and vanished upwards. Whilst out of sight he did a handstand and so reappeared upside down, insisting that the lift had upturned him.
Incidentally, this very paternoster featured briefly in one episode of “The Prisoner”
I’m glad you posted the video, as I could not for the life of me work out what was happening in the comic.
Also, how many victims has that stupid lift claimed?
Now, I am not Catholic and my Latin is best described as “rudimentary at best” but is that lift system called an “our father” and, if so, is that not the most grim? I do, however, love trusting this to art students.
Yeah, it’s called “our father” from the first words of the (Latin) Lord’s Prayer (Pater noster qui es in cælis…), not because you need to pray to survive it, but, as mentioned above, because the mechanism, with a series of cars connected in a continuous loop, resembles a string of rosary beads.
I keep coming back to check comments and stuff, and feeling increasingly bad for Claire, who’s now been trapped on that paternoster all weekend.