The lift was built in 1929 by a private company, the Società Ligure per Impianto ed Esercizio Ascensori, to connect the main railway station of Genoa with Montegalletto, a name now in disuse that indicated the area at the time subject to a large urban expansion.
At the end of the 1960s the number of users experienced a gradual reduction due to the introduction of the unified tariff in the Genoa public transport which made it less convenient the use of the lift.