The world’s smallest escalator, located in the basement of a department store in Kawasaki, Japan, has only five steps.
When More’s in Kawasaki opened in 1989, the designers wanted to connect its underground level to a nearby shopping center, Azalea. Since the levels weren’t perfectly lined up, they added regular stairs and a small escalator. However, a design mistake made the escalator shorter than planned.
While figuring out how to build it, the designers discovered a big concrete beam where the motor should go. Instead of giving up, they decided to make the escalator smaller, which ended up becoming the smallest one in the world and has held that title for over 30 years.
[Source: ODDITY CENTRAL]