Since the beginning of the 2025-2026 academic year, the escalators in Loyola Marymount University’s University Hall (UHall) have been under repair, following a string of breakdowns in the years before. As large LMU-blue signs hang on the matching blue barriers and posters in front of the escalators, both acknowledging the in-progress repairs, students are asked to use an alternate route for the moving stairs that have yet to be reopened.
According to LMU’s Marketing and Communications team, LMU acquired UHall in 1999 and started using it in 2000 after it was constructed for Hughes Aircraft Co. in the mid-1980s. The current escalators are the original sets from when the building first opened, making them around 40 years old. LMU Facilities Management recognizes the gradual wear and tear of such infrastructure and the need to address the repairs.
“Providing safe and efficient pedestrian pathways across campus is a priority,” LMU Facilities Management states. “We appreciate the community’s patience and flexibility while our Facilities Management team assesses the current condition of the escalators as part of a long-range plan to ensure adequate pedestrian flow through UHall for years to come.”
However, the escalator breakdowns are not new to the building – rather, they have merely escalated. LMU’s Loyolan began reporting breakdowns in 2010, as reporter Angelica Cadiente discussed seeing a broken UHall escalator on her way to class. Similarly, reporter Sydney Stuart covered frequent multi-escalator breakdowns in 2014. A year later, Julia Sacco sat down with the then-Director of Facilities Management, Alfred Tipon, as he described halting the maintenance on the escalators due to the growing financial burden and LMU’s plan to replace the escalators with stationary stairs.
However, in 2024, Ian Belton and Donny Decano produced a video package to report more multi-escalator breakdowns. Between 2017 and 2024, the Loyolan has used the Bluff, the satirical section of its paper, to make light of the situation and sarcastically reflect on the decade-long repairs.
During the breakdowns of the 2024-2025 academic year, students would utilize the non-operating escalators as another staircase, as they had not yet been blocked off by Facilities. If a few of the escalators could not be used as stairs, yellow foldable barriers would be placed in front of the entrances for precaution. However, the current wooden barriers prevent use in any way, and while it is important to keep students safe, students have mixed opinions about the inconveniences of getting to class.
“The escalators not working can be inconvenient, especially when it’s hot,” second-year student Anaya Patel said. “Having to take the emergency stairs gets really hot and is a tight space that isn’t working for the amount of people that need to walk up and down…The process has been long and confusing for students wanting to use them.”
Fourth-year student Isabella Gutierrez urges for transparency on the delays in repairs and lack of progress, noting, “There is a need for those with disabilities, and even able-bodied people to be equipped with more accessible and efficient modes of transport beyond the few elevators spread apart.”
Contrarily, third-year student William Roberts said, “Since there are other options to go to each floor, the stairs across from the escalators and the elevators, I don’t think it’s been detrimental to navigating the building.”
Whether or not they are affected, a few upperclassmen students question how long the escalators have been under repair.
“At least to my memory, there hasn’t been more than a month-long span where all three escalators were working. I have had a class in U-Hall each semester for the last 2.5 years, and I feel like the percentage of time they’ve been out of use is a little weird,” Roberts said. “With that, I might just be in the building conveniently when it isn’t being fixed, but I simply have never seen any workers fixing them, ever, just the ‘under maintenance’ signs. It’s not the biggest deal, but it is just kind of odd.”
Third-year student Lily Mei similarly said, “I’m not too sure about what’s going on with the escalators, to be honest. They’ve been broken since I arrived as a freshman.”
Facilities Management has not commented on the state of the escalators or the repairs, though a few students have their theories.
“I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but my friends and I have this theory that maybe the escalators need to be fully redone top to bottom, and that they keep breaking because we are only doing small repairs—like putting a bandaid over a much bigger wound,” Mei said. “This is just a theory, of course—the escalators are one of LMU’s biggest urban legends.”
For now, students will have to take the stairs and elevators available in the building. Main stairs are located on the first and last landings of U-Hall, while a set of emergency stairs can be found off the Political Science and International Relations hall on the left side of the building, across from the escalator entrances. Elevators can also be found on the right side of the building, across from each set of main stairs.
While the university and Facilities Management assess the current conditions of the moving stairs and repair them accordingly, U-Hall will maintain its defining characteristic of cosmetic escalators. Until they are moving again, students will have to continue going forward with their daily lives and pursuit of education – walking.
