Skyscraper Elevator Skylobbies

[roadman65]

I have never been inside a big city skyscraper except the former World Trade Center in both New York and New Orleans as well as the Empire State Building.  In the former aforementioned World Trade Center I rode a non stop express elevator to the top.  In the other two I had to get out and change floors. The Empire State Building had one slow elevator to take you to the 80th Floor, where you disembarked there to ride another elevator to the 86th Floor Observatory.  The ticket taker who collected your paid admission to the observation level was present at the second elevator.

The New Orleans building had a revolving restaurant and I went to that facility in 1992. It, I believe, was like the Empire State Building where a transfer was made.

However, I never got to go to intermediate floors in any skyscraper, but heard that some have a sky lobby where an express elevator travels to. Then in the sky lobby you have a different set of elevators each going to various locations above the lobby. 


I was wondering if I heard correct.  I was always under the impression only the ground floor was a transfer point.  In the New York Twin Towers you had floors 1-43 inside the core of the buildings while floors 44 to 76 were on the outside on one side, while 77 to 110 were on the other side.  However, if what I'm thinking is correct the outside elevators in the original Pre Bin Laden towers went to these sky lobbies instead and above the lower floor elevator shafts ( stacked shafts) were the transfer local elevators. 

The only thing wrong with the set up was going from the 100th floor to the 50th. You had to go down to the 77th Lobby and go down to the ground level to transfer to a 44th Floor Express elevator, then make one final transfer to a local elevator to the 50th Floor.  Meaning 3 transfers and four rides.

I would have hoped the two sky lobbies were connected to at least eliminate the trip to the ground.

[Bruce]

Seattle's tallest building (the Columbia Center) has a skylobby system as well as an express elevator divided as follows:

Parking and lobbies on 4th and 5th avenues use their own elevator on the north side.
Floors 1-39 accessible from center elevator bank.
Floor 40 is a skylobby with express service from the ground lobbies with onward "local" elevators to the rest of the tower.
The observation deck on the 74th floor has an express elevator from the 4th Avenue lobby to segregate tourists from office workers and club patrons.

[abefroman329]

Sears Tower has a skylobby system.

I know of several skyscrapers (Chase Tower in Chicago, for one) where each bank of elevators serves, say, floors 2-30, 31-45, and 46-60, but there's no need to change elevators to get to your floor. 

I don't know the fancy name for it, but I would think that, as the systems where you select the floor you're getting off at and a computer assigns an elevator to you get more popular, it would make the system of specific floors assigned to specific elevators obsolete.