4 ms·

FYI it's still operational, although not used for day to day ops. From what I heard, back during the communist times, power sometimes failed and people were le

• inglor_cz 4y ago
  Interesting that there wasn't any failsafe mechanism to lower you down gently if power went out.
  • vintermann 4y ago
    The failsafe was probably rather to prevent you from getting rapidly lowered if the power went out, as it is with most elevators.
• dredmorbius 4y ago
  Both statements are true by accounts I've read. Ladders were added to the desks during a later renovation, I believe in 1970s: Although the number of employees decreased rapidly, mainly due to digitization, the file remained in its original form. It underwent innovations only in the 1970s, when ladders were installed at the stackers for safety reasons. Zuzana Greplová, head of the administration and registration of claims documents, who has been working here for more than 40 years, remembers the times without a ladder with a smile. "When the power went out, we had to pull out the outlets and gradually descend them, either in the dark or with a flashlight." From the Czech: https://www.novinky.cz/domaci/clanek/devet-tisic-supliku-obsahuje-udaje-temer-vsech-obyvatel-cr-209020 https://www.novinky.cz/domaci/clanek/devet-tisic-supliku-obs... They're visible in the bottom two photos in this collection: https://fotoscuriosas.org/the-offices-of-the-central-social-institution-of-prague-with-the-largest-vertical-letter-file-in-the-world-1937/ https://fotoscuriosas.org/the-offices-of-the-central-social-... (There are also other older interior views.)