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Whenever Richy Glassberg gets into an elevator to go to his midtown Manhattan office, he reflexively reaches to press the button for his floor, but there are no buttons.
The buttons are in the lobby, at the base of the elevator bank. Elevator riders enter their floor number on a keypad and are directed by the display to a particular car that will stop at their floor.
You can't change your mind about where you're going after the doors shut. "Once you get on, you've got claustrophobia," says Glassberg, who is a senior vice president at Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc.'s TV Guide. He calls the new elevators "Wonkavators," after the flying glass elevator in the movie "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory."
These new buttonless lifts - known as "destination elevators" - are springing up in new buildings all over the world, promising to speed rides and reduce waiting time. The Swiss company Schindler Group has installed nearly 3,000 destination elevators, including about 600 in the U.S. In midtown Manhattan, they can be found at the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square, the News Corp. headquarters on Sixth Avenue where TV Guide is located, 30 Rockefeller Center, and in the new Hearst Corp. headquarters on 57th Street.
Many elevator riders are finding it hard to adjust to the new technology. Just as riders in the 1950s complained at first about the disappearance of human elevator operators, some riders today are uncomfortable ceding control of their ride to a computer. First- timers are the most confused, often hopping into an open elevator and then realizing as the doors shut in front of them that there are no buttons to press.
In a New Yorker...