Elevator operator's overriding story: joy
The loft-like offices at 5514 Wilshire Blvd. are largely the domain of the young, who work in jeans and T-shirts at flat-panel screens.They are Web branders, search engine optimizers, e-tailers of underground clothing lines. They do the virtual jobs that became jobs only recently.
Ruben Pardo works in the building, too, in a job that dates to the late 19th century.
Pardo operates one of the last manual elevators in Los Angeles.
The young people are not easily impressed - but something about Pardo awes them.
Each morning, the 69-year-old arrives at the Art Deco tower in wool trousers, a button-down shirt and a sweater vest.
Six days a week, for just over half his life, he has been steering the same 6-foot-by-8-foot car up and down the same 11 floors.
"He's been in this elevator longer than I've been on the planet," said Mani Nabavi of digitalgravel.com on the fifth floor, who turned 35 just after Pardo's 35th anniversary.
Young people come. Young people go. Eleven hours each weekday and nine hours each Saturday, Pardo greets them warmly and transports them to and from airy work spaces with concrete floors and views of the ocean, downtown and the Hollywood sign.
NYCC: Marvel Television Has Big Plans
Jeph Loeb , head of Marvel Television and writer of "Avengers: X-Sanction" , presented the full slate of Marvel Television's current and upcoming projects Saturday afternoon at New York Comic Con . Before his presentation began, Loeb gave a shout out to "Amazing Spider-Man" writer Dan Slott and editor Steve Wacker, who were sitting in the audience, crediting them with the recent surge in "Amazing Spider-Man" sales.
"If you see rumors online, if you hear about things, if you don't see my name attached to it, you just gotta assume that those rumors are things we are not ready to talk about," said Loeb as he moved on to the topic of the afternoon. "Anything we do today, you'll know is for reals."
He reiterated by saying what they do at Marvel Television and Marvel Studios is special and all their projects are worth the years' long wait between shows and movies. He knocked Marvel comic projects other studios have pushed out quicker, specifically naming "Daredevil" as a movie that did not do the property justice.
