At 535 West End Avenue, for example, a building where the cheapest apartment available at the moment is a five-bedroom listed at $8.5 million, one of its two elevators switches to Shabbos mode on Friday evening. But instead of creeping up from the lobby one floor at a time, it shoots up to the penthouse and then works its way down.

This arrangement gives the shortest ride up to those on the highest floors, who would have the toughest trek on the stairs. Not necessarily coincidentally, it also gives the speediest trip to those who have paid the most.

Another Upper West Side building, the Heritage at Trump Place, at 240 Riverside Boulevard, employs a still fancier express service. On the Sabbath, one of its six passenger elevators stops at prerequested floors, but then it goes into regular service mode for five minutes before doing another round of Shabbos stops.

“They want the view,” Gilad Azaria, a Prudential Douglas Elliman broker who has sold apartments at 240 Riverside, said of the residents. “But 15 floors is a lot of steps.”

While it is impossible to know how many New York City buildings have a Shabbos elevator, brokers say they are not common. And Rabbi Elie Weinstock, who lives on the 11th floor of his building, said most people made do without, sometimes by jumping into a regular elevator and hoping their fellow passengers are heading to a floor near their own destination.

“I have hitched before, and I have seen it done,” Rabbi Weinstock said. “Wherever they take you is going to be closer than you were before.”