Floor 1021

Description

Floor 1021 is a custodial and vestibular floor of the Tower, administered between Floor 909 and Floor 1117. It is principally known for housing the Third Stair of Bearings, a vertical passage whose landings are numbered independently of the floors they serve, and for the long-running dispute over which office is responsible for its oiling.

The floor occupies a narrow footprint by Tower standards — 41 metres at its widest — and consists of a single vestibule, a waiting alcove, two storage annexes, and the stairwell itself. Its walls are lined with fixed seating for eleven persons. The seating is not, and has never been, sufficient for the number of persons who wait there.

The Third Stair of Bearings

The stair descends from Floor 1021 to an unmarked landing and ascends to Floor 1021 from a second unmarked landing. Expeditions sent in both directions have returned with inventories and no conclusions. The stair's bearings — the turn-points at which the flight reverses — are marked with brass plates carrying Roman numerals; these numerals do not correspond to the landing numbers recorded in the Eleventh Concordance, and no reconciliation has been issued.

The floor's custodial staff oil the stair on the third week of each month. This was not always the case. Prior to the ruling recorded in Concordance 44, Annex 7, the oiling was performed by the Office of Vertical Surfaces, which held that a stair was a surface and not a passage. The Office of Passages disputed this. The dispute was settled in favour of Vertical Surfaces on the grounds that a passage must have two ends, and the Third Stair's ends had never been located.

Visitors are reminded that the seating alcove is not a waiting room and that the eleventh seat is reserved.

The Alcove

The waiting alcove of Floor 1021 is the site of the Floor 1021 Sitting, an occurrence catalogued separately in which fourteen persons entered the alcove and fifteen exited. The discrepancy of one is recorded without comment in the register. The alcove's lamp has been reported as lit on floors where no lamp exists; this is attributed to reflection and has not been pursued.

Copies of the Ninth Concordance are kept in the alcove's lower shelf, though the copy present has been identified as a recension predating the amendments cited in Floor 173's ruling on vestibular precedence.

Administrative position

Floor 1021 is situated between Floor 909 and Floor 1117, per the settlement recorded in the Third Concordance. Some older indexes place it instead between Floor 1001 and Floor 1117, omitting Floor 909 entirely; this omission is generally attributed to a clerical error in the Floor 101 gazetteer and has not been formally corrected.

The floor shares a custodial officer with Floor 1001 and a lamp inventory with Floor 1117. Its relationship to Floor 147 is procedural only; the two floors exchange no traffic.

Disputes

The principal unresolved matter concerning Floor 1021 is the numbering of the Third Stair's landings. The Office of Passages maintains that the landings are numbered from the top down; the Office of Vertical Surfaces maintains that they are numbered from the bottom up. Both offices cite Concordance 44. Neither citation is regarded by the other as competent.

A secondary dispute concerns the eleventh seat. It was reserved by an ordinance whose text survives only in the Floor 202 annex, and the reason for the reservation is not stated. Attempts to identify the person for whom the seat is held have produced four candidates, none of whom has been observed on the floor.