Nick Paumgarten’s “Up and Then Down”

From The New Yorker's archive: a portrait of the lives of elevators, published in 2008.  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌   View in browser | Update your preferences     Our Local Correspondents Up And Then Down The elevator is to the city what paper is to reading and gunpowder is to war. By Nick Paumgarten The journalist Nick Paumgarten has enjoyed a prolific and far-ranging career at The New Yorker, contributing more than four hundred pieces to the magazine since 2000. A former editor of The Talk of the Town, Paumgarten has written on a wide variety of subjects, including the financial crash of 2008, the Swiss mountaineer Ueli Steck's brush with death on Mount Everest, the art empire of the gallerist David Zwirner, and the mystery behind an exclusive restaurant in upstate New York. It's a tricky task to single out just one of his pieces to highlight. However, if you, like me, have ever worked in a tall office building, one of Paumgarten's most memorable pieces has to be "Up and Then Down," a portrait of the lives of elevators, those ubiquitous and seemingly unremarkable mechanisms of daily existence. Published in 2008, the piece begins with a spine-tingling tale about an office worker who spent an entire weekend trapped in a Manhattan elevator in the fall of 1999. Paumgarten captures the man's growing apprehension as his predicament dawns on him, interspersing the account with extensive, often surprising reporting on the machines themselves. For Paumgarten, elevators serve as a point of entry into our broader relationship with the tools and technologies that quietly populate our lives. "You go in here and come out there, and you hardly consider that you have just raced up or down a vertiginous, pitch-black shaft," he writes. "When you're waiting for a ride, you don't think that what lurks behind the outer doors is emptiness. Every so often, a door opens when it shouldn't and someone steps into the void." Like some of the best New Yorker pieces, "Up and Then Down" focusses on an outwardly mundane topic and reveals an enthralling story behind it. In Paumgarten's hands, elevators become more than a means of conveyance—they offer an arresting tableau of our public lives and private fears. By challenging our notions of what constitutes a compelling subject, Paumgarten raises the vertical limits of our own imaginations.   —Erin Overbey, archive editor More from the Archive     Annals of Adventure A Clash on Mt. Everest From 2013: What caused a violent conflict between Sherpas and Western climbers? By Nick Paumgarten     The Sporting Scene Playing Doc's Games From 1992: How a big-wave surfer moves beyond fear. By William Finnegan You're receiving this e-mail because you signed up for the New Yorker Classics newsletter. Was this e-mail forwarded to you? Sign up.   Unsubscribe | Manage your e-mail preferences | Send newsletter feedback | View our privacy policy    Copyright © Condé Nast 2021. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.