“The Worst Escalators in Brooklyn” at High Street Station to be Replaced

By on July 8, 2022 8:28 am in 11201, Brooklyn Heights, Downtown Brooklyn, DUMBO, News, Transportation

This news comes from a tweet sent by Council Member Lincoln Restler. No further details could be found yet.

(Photo by m01229 via Wikimedia.)

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  • Andrew Porter

    Once upon a time the escalators were mahogany. Then came the 1987 King’s Cross escalator fire in the London Underground in which flames spread via wooden escalators with many years of grease in them: 31 died.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Cross_fire

    Then they replaced the reliable wooden elevators at High Street with modern steel ones—and they haven’t worked reliably since!

  • David Weinkrantz

    What causes the problem with the steel ones?

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nPOzGeyaw Arch Stanton

    It’s just selective memory by Mr Porter. The wooden ones also broke down constantly. I know, I took the A train daily to high school 77-81 then to work 83-85.

    Old wood escalators were also notoriously dangerous for sucking people in, maiming and even killing them.
    Also, the wooden part was only the treads and the surface paneling, all the mechanicals were cast iron or steel.

    While an escalator is a fairly simple machine, modern ones have many safety features that shut them down if there is any issue detected. This leads to meany false shutdowns.