For most city people, the elevator is an unremarkable machine that inspires none of the enthusiasm or interest that Americans afford trains, jets, and even bicycles. Dr Christopher Wilk is a member of a small group of elevator experts who consider this a misunderstanding. Without the elevator, they point out, there could be no downtown skyscrapers or tall buildings, and city life as we know it would be impossible. In that sense, they argue, the elevator's role in American history has been no less significant than that of cars. In fact, according to Wilk, the car and the elevator have been locked in a "secret war" for over a century, with cars making it possible for people to spread horizontally, and elevators pushing them towards life in close groups of towering vertical columns.
对于大多数城市人来说，电梯是一种不起眼的机器，它激发不了美国人那种对于火车、飞机甚至自行车的热情和兴趣。克里斯托弗·威尔克博士是一个电梯专家小组的成员，他们认为这是一种误解。他们指出，没有电梯，就不可能有市中心的摩天大楼或高层建筑，我们所熟悉的城市生活也不可能。他们认为，从某种意义上讲，电梯在美国历史上的作用不亚于汽车。事实上，根据威尔克的说法，汽车和电梯已经在一场“秘密战争”中锁定了一个多世纪，汽车让人们可以水平扩散，电梯通过一组组封闭的高耸立柱将他们推向生活。
If we tend to ignore the significance of elevators, it might be because riding in them tends to be such a brief, boring, and even awkward experience - one that can involve unexpectedly meeting people with whom we have nothing in common, and an unpleasant awareness of the fact that we're hanging from a cable in a long passage.
如果我们总是忽视电梯的重要性，那可能因为乘坐电梯往往是一种短暂、无聊、甚至尴尬的体验，可能会意外地遇到与我们毫无共同之处的人，长时间内悬挂在电缆上体验并不友好。
In a new book, Lifted, German journalist and cultural studies professor Andreas Bernard claimed that riding in an elevator has never been a totally comfortable experience." After 150 years, we are still not used to it," Bernard said. "We still have not exactly learnt to cope with the mixture of closeness and displeasure." That mixture, according to Bernard, sets the elevator ride apart from just about every other situation we find ourselves in as we go about our lives.
德国记者和文化研究教授安德烈亚斯·伯纳德在新书《电梯》中称，乘坐电梯从来都不是一种完全舒适的体验。“150年后，我们仍然不习惯，”伯纳德说，“我们仍然没有真正学会如何处理亲密和不愉快的混合。”伯纳德说，这种混合决定了乘坐电梯的过程有别于我们在生活中遇到的其他所有情况。
Today, as the world's urban population explodes, and cities become more crowded, taller, and more crowded, America's total number of elevators are a force that's becoming more important than ever. And for the people who really, really love them, it seems like high time that we looked seriously at just what kind of force they are.
今天，随着世界城市人口的爆炸式增长，城市变得越来越拥挤、越来越高、越来越拥挤，美国的电梯总数比以往任何时候都更加重要。对于那些真正、真正爱它们的人来说，现在似乎是时候认真关注它们的力量了。
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