On the 23rd of March, 1857, the first successful passenger elevator carried customers up to the fifth floor of the Haughwout Building in New York City.
It was not actually the first elevator, but it was the first commercial installation by Elisha Otis, who invented the safety device that made it all possible. And it works very well; according to a 2008 article in the New Yorker, in New York City alone there are 30 million elevator trips every day. Yet elevators kill only an average of 26 people per year (mostly those who work on them) whereas cars kill that many in five hours. Elevators are safe, efficient, and mostly ignored.
E. V. Haughwout Building