In the year 2000, I visited Bremen, Germany, and saw a Paternoster Lift for the first time. My first reaction was both curiosity and delight, mixed in with a little bit of fear. I had never ridden one before. It seemed to me that riding one was all about timing. When to step in, when to step out.

Looking back on it now, it reminds me of several things at once: a dumbwaiter, a strange marriage of an escalator with an elevator, a vertical river of sorts. It brings to mind that saying: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.” It also kinda reminds me of movie film, where each compartment is a frame of a movie, and therefore a frame in time.

Because of the constant, steady movement, it makes me aware of time much more than an escalator or elevator do. Time sliced up. You only have very short moments to step on and step off.

Paternosters are rare now, and dangers aside, they aren’t exactly accessible. You have to be able-bodied. They feel like a rich reminder of an earlier time, when other now-rare technology was common: pneumatic mail tubes, dumbwaiters, punch cards, and telegraphs.