A reporter’s life on ‘elevator watch’ outside Mayor Rob Ford’s office

I can no longer count the minutes, hours or even days. It has been perhaps a month or more of my life that I’ve spent staring blankly at the elevator doors outside Mayor Rob Ford’s office.

For a mayor who rarely advertises his public appearances, the elevator has become the go to location. It is the one place where the odds of asking the mayor a question are fairly high.

“Elevator watch,” as the media calls it, emerged after the first reports of the crack video surfaced in May. Ever since, reporters have kept an almost daily vigil watching those stainless steel doors.

It’s the same routine over and over. At the start of the day, reporters wait for the elevator to descend to the basement. Each time the electronic sign indicates the elevator rising straight to the second floor, the camera lights come on and reporters gather around.

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99 percent of the time it’s a false alarm. A staffer, a councillor or a member of the public is usually subjected to the TV lights and clicks of camera shutters. They laugh, and joke about having their 15 seconds of fame.

When it’s the mayor, the scene turns chaotic: Jostling, bumping, shouting, the questions and camera crews trail Ford for the 25 foot walk to office. Sometimes Ford stops to talk but more often than not, he brushes past with no comment.

Occasionally he gets angry, especially if someone is blocking his way.

Elevator watch has also become a strange indicator of the mood of Toronto’s chief magistrate.

If Ford is happy, proud of an accomplishment or in a generally amiable mood he will take the elevator and answer a few questions.

A bad day for Rob Ford though means he will use the back door, where no one with a question can get anywhere close.

The elevator is now a symbol of Ford’s embattled administration. It even has its own twitter account. Tour groups regularly pass and stare at the crowd of professional gawkers. Torontonians come to city hall to meet their favourite media personalities, often posing for pictures with reporters. A man dressed up as a banana once emerged to deliver fruit to the assembled media.

Perhaps it is fitting that it was just another day on elevator watch when the doors parted, Ford stepped out and confessed to smoking crack cocaine. At the end of that same day, Ford left through the back door. It was in front of that same elevator that Ford once wondered why reporters “can’t get it through their thick skulls” that he had no comment on the massive Project Traveller police raids. There was a day where the doors opened and the mayor turned his back on the press, and buried his face in the corner, out of view.

For a mayor who has had his share of ups and downs, the elevator has also become the perfect metaphor.