Elevator Historical Society Museum

Long Island City, New York

Opened in 2011, the museum is mostly the personal hoard of founder and curator Patrick Carrajat, who began collecting elevator paraphernalia in 1955 when he was 11. It occupies a single room designed to look like the inside of an elevator, packed with about 2,000 manuals, metal identification plates, pop culture paraphernalia, and obscure mechanical parts from the early days of up-and-down travel. See the earliest elevator push button (1895), an early elevator hand brake (1890) and a autographed photo of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in an elevator from the film Titanic (1997).

Carrajat hopes to move his museum to a larger space in 2013-14, ideally a two-story building with high ceilings, so he can offer rides on an antique elevator.