This is a complete video tour of the Duluth, Minnesota Skywalk System and all of the elevators in it. There are some that I was unable to ride because they are not accessible to the general public. However, I was able to ride almost every single elevator connected to the Skywalks. This was my little summer project, and to the best of my knowledge, this is the longest elevator video, as well as the only complete city tour of elevators on YouTube at this point. I would like to note that this video is not continuous. That is, I didn't film this entire 4 hour video in one shot. This took many days to accomplish and it happened a little bit at a time. It is, however, continuous in the fact that I have edited it so that wherever I stopped filming, I started there again, so it is a continuous tour without any breaks in the trail. I should also point out that this only includes the main Downtown portion of the Skywalk system. There is a second, smaller system a few blocks to the northeast of the Technology Village, which is the easternmost point in the video. That connects the hospitals and other medical buildings together, and that is not shown here. There is a proposed skywalk expansion that would connect the two systems together, and if that does get built someday, then another, much longer video will have to be made!
By my count, there are 60 elevators shown in this video. I count banks of elevators as one elevator and usually only ride one of them to save time. Only 5 of the 60 elevators shown could not be ridden; 2 were freight elevators, 1 was permanently out of service, and the other 2 were not accessible to the public. There are many brands of elevators, including Dover, ThyssenKrupp, Schindler, Otis, and Westinghouse. Also some lesser known brands, such as Lagerquist, Johnson Elevator Company, and Minnesota Elevator Company (MEI). The only major brands I can think of that don't make an appearance are Montgomery or Kone (although there is a set of Montgomery escalators in the Holiday Center, which I do show). There are many old elevators and new ones as well. Some are completely original and some have been modernized. This is a city of many diverse elevators.
I start and end the tour at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center (DECC), where we get a good view of the Aerial Lift Bridge. I won't go into the specifics of all the elevators and their buildings because that would be an excruciatingly long read. A map of the skywalk system can be found here: http://www.downtownduluth.com/parkplus/images/map_lg.gif, in case anyone wants to follow along.
To anyone that watches this thing all the way through; You definitely deserve a gold star and I thank you very much and hope you enjoy it.
Thank you for watching :)
*NOTE: I made this video during the summer of 2011. It was originally uploaded to another YouTube channel, and I am now posting it here as this is my new elevator headquarters on YouTube. Some of the elevators in this video have been modernized, but most remain the same as of Spring 2014. There are many city projects in the works, so quite a few elevators in this video will be destroyed and replaced as new buildings replace old ones.