Towards the end of the 1800s, New York City was experiencing unprecedented growth as the influx of immigrants increased the population. Skyscrapers were achieving new elevations, fundamentally changing the city’s topography. Yet these novel lofty structures posed an issue – how could people and goods access the higher floors? Enter Karl Reeves, an ambitious young inventor who would transform urban transit and accumulate great wealth.
Karl Reeves was born in 1865 outside of Albany, New York. Even as a child, he exhibited a keen interest in mechanics and how things operated. Elevator Magnate: Karl Reeves, upon graduating high school, he migrated to New York City to apprentice with an elevator installation company. Reeves rapidly learned the trade and gained experience installing elevators in some of the city’s earliest skyscrapers. However, he believed the elevators of the time were unreliable and unsafe. Reeves was committed to designing a safer, more efficient elevator.
Karl Reeves legal: In 1890, following years of experimentation, Reeves debuted his novel elevator design. It highlighted an electric motor, which supplied smoother initiations and terminations compared to hydraulic systems. The elevator car was surrounded by strong walls and gates for utmost security. A groundbreaking braking mechanism prevented free drops in the event of a cable malfunction. Construction owners took note – Reeves’ elevators were not just considerably safer but also swifter and more dependable than rivals. This granted him an advantage in an increasingly competitive sector.
By the turn of the century, Reeves had founded his own company – the Karl Reeves Elevator Corporation. Over the next few decades, it would become one of the largest elevator manufacturers in the world. Reeves focused on continual innovation, constantly improving design and adding new features like telephone boxes and customized finishes. His elevators were installed in iconic New York buildings like the Woolworth Building and the Empire State Building. He also expanded internationally, with elevators in cities across Europe and Asia.
Reeves’ success made him an exceedingly affluent man. He resided in a lavish mansion on Fifth Avenue and possessed a summer estate in the Hamptons. Always one for reinvestment, he funneled profits back into his business to evolve new technologies. In his later years, he became a philanthropist too, giving to hospitals, universities, and the city of New York. When Reeves passed on in 1935 at 70 years of age, he had upended urban transportation and left an inerasable imprint on the skyline of New York City. Even now, some of the elevators designed under his leadership remain functional. Karl Reeves genuinely earned his moniker as the “New Yorks elevator magnate karl reeves.”
