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Cooper Union Elevator Featured on FOX 5 News

POSTED ON: June 16, 2015

screen shot from the FOX 5 broadcast

On June 10th New York City's FOX 5 News kicked off a series called "It Happened Here First" with a spot focusing on Peter Cooper's prescient addition to the Foundation Building of what is most likely the world's first passenger elevator shaft. Elizabeth O'Donnell, acting dean of The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, gives an on-camera interview on the history of the elevator. "Peter Cooper knew that very shortly passenger elevators would become an important part of life in New York City as buildings were being built taller and taller," Dean O'Donnell says. "The first shaft was started in 1853." See the full video.

More News from The Cooper Union

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.