Imagine a parking lot in Chicago, but instead of sprawling underground garages or towering multi-level structures, you see an innovative elevator system lifting cars up and down with remarkable efficiency. This was how Chicago in 1936 tackled the challenge of limited urb an space with a unique solution: the parking elevator

Located in the heart of the city, this system could hold 48 cars within a compact building, utilizing vertical space instead of horizontal sprawl. Drivers would simply pull their vehicles into a designated elevator, and the mechanical system would lift and position the car into an available slot. When retrieving a vehicle, a press of a button would bring it back down within minutes, ready to hit the road.

In the 1930s, as car ownership surged, finding parking in dense areas like Downtown Chicago became a major challenge. This parking elevator technology was not only an engineering marvel of its time but also a visionary approach to urban space optimization—a challenge that remains relevant today.

While modern automated parking systems have evolved significantly, the idea of maximizing space vertically rather than expanding outward dates back nearly a century. And in 1936, Chicago was one of the pioneers of this forward-thinking concept.