February 18, 1935, when you couldn’t use an elevator by yourself: crowds of tenants are stranded outside 1385 Broadway (between 37th and 38th Sts.) as the building's elevator operators went on strike. It was a part of the general Building Service Employees Union labor dispute.

By Stephen Millies

And thank you for receiving it! It took some time, but I’m glad I finally finished that book on elevator-themed stadium cushions. It’s like, there are books on sports-themed stadium cushions, stadium cushions created for comfort, stadium cushions with themes from every single major media franchise (Star Wars, Looney Tunes, Peanuts…), but every third seat cushion you see when you go to a game has some sort of elevator on it—and no one was talking about it! I can’t believe people weren’t even curious! Just like, “Ho, hum, going to the game! Guess I’ll pick up a stadium cushion. Don’t care what it has on it, so I’ll just get one with an old-timey elevator on it, I guess,” like, what?! How did that become so common?! I just had to get to the bottom of it, and even though my agent begged me not to write this book, I knew it would find its audience—and clearly it has. So thank you! Thank you for purchasing Going Down: The History of Elevator-Themed Seat Cushions Used in American Stadiums. My goal now is to do an art book, showcasing the various types of elevator-themed cushions used throughout the 20th and now 21st century. I’ve just been doing research, but have already been given permission to photograph the first ever elevator-themed stadium cushion: one of the ORIGINAL “Ollie the Operator” cushions sold at a game between the Philadelphia Athletics and Cleveland Naps played in old League Park in the summer of 1905. I’m not ashamed to say I wept for twenty-five full minutes after I finished photographing that cushion. Some moments in your life are so precious, yet so unbelievable, all you can do is cry and hope you’re not dreaming. Seeing that cushion, just… It’s indescribable. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.

Write on Wednesday – My Brain Is a Many Storied Thing – September 26, 2018

Lately I’ve been thinking about my brain as a department store with multiple stories. It has an elevator with an operator who takes me to different floors.  If you’re not old enough to remember elevator operators in their perky uniforms, you’ve probably seen them in movies. Second floor – Ladies apparel. Third Floor – Men’s Haberdashery. Fourth floor – Home Furnishings. The elevator operator knew…

Sharecropper, 1957, Elizabeth Catlett

[Catlett’s] Father was a professor at Tuskeegee, Mom worked for the City of Washingon. And they lived in very nice housing. But Elizabeth wasn’t happy with that. She did not glorify those things that most of us aspire to.

She wasn’t so concerned about feminism as she was about motherhood, and fighting for justice, or women in their part in terms of seeking justice, and how they were treated or mistreated.

The fact that some African American women were in the hierarchy, she was not thinking about them. She was thinking about the elevator operators, the people who worked in the kitchens. These people are the ones that deserve dignity, she felt. The others had it. —Samella Lewis