Prague City Hall Paternoster Shut Down for Repairs

The paternoster — a doorless hop-on, hop-off elevator — in the Prague City Hall building in the Czech Republic shut down in April for repairs, as it had become overburdened due to its increased popularity as a free tourist attraction that went viral on social media and was featured in some guidebooks, expats.cz reports. Mayor Bohuslav Svoboda confirmed to the news site Novinky that the closure was due to long-term tourist burden and incidents with emergency stops. Whether its operation will be resumed will depend on the decision of the municipal office, he said, adding that rumors circulating that it has been permanently stopped are false. The paternoster underwent a technical inspection and is awaiting possible repair, according to a tweet from government officials. The paternoster was completely renovated in 2017 for CZK 3.6 million (US$164,453), replacing equipment from the 1970s. But this didn’t prepare it for the heavy use and overloading that it had been experiencing recently, according to the source. There are several other paternosters in Prague, but not all are accessible to the public. Paternosters have a reputation for being dangerous and are no longer allowed to be constructed in some countries. Most recently, a man died in May in Berlin, Germany, while trying to descend floors on this type of machine.