hockeygirl wrote: I love going on it at night and looking out the little "hatch" or window or whatever it is at the top of the ride.
They are the elevator doors

It's supposed to be like when you ride an actual elevator and the doors open onto a floor, but, as seen in the pre-show video, the building that is supposed to be attached was vaporized by lightning...not exactly plausible but it's the Twilight Zone.
Watch carefully next time, you'll clearly see two towers on the front facade of the HTH in the video, then lightning strikes, then it cuts to the folks in the elevator getting electrocuted, then it cuts back out to the outside and shows a ghostly elevator drop and as it does the two towers vanish.