This is 99% Invisible.

I'm Roman Mars.

The story goes like this.

And keep in mind with all these origin stories, when they sound a little too much like stories,

they're probably not completely true.

But anyway, the story goes like this.

The off-less Van Canal hated Shivori.

There was nothing he despised more than trying to walk in or out of a building and locking

horns with some other man and a game of,

no, you first.

No, I insist, you first.

And more than that socially mandated difference to other men, the off-less Van Canal hated

opening doors for women.

And so the off-less Van Canal, or Theo for short, took a German innovation from 1881,

the Tuha-on-Alufzucker, or door without draft of air.

He made some improvements to the design and in 1888 was awarded an American patent for

the improved revolving door.

The first one was installed in Times Square in 1899.

That's our producer Sam Greenspan.

Van Canal's improved revolving door had three compartments and weather stripping to ensure

an energy efficient fit inside the door frame.

His 1888 patent states that quote,

...