Short answer: New York City writes the words for you. Appendix K of the Building Code names specific legends for machine room access doors, hoistway access openings and pit doors, and it sets a minimum letter height for each. If a door carries a sign with different wording, it is not the sign the section names.
Below is each one, quoted. Appendix K is the city's modified version of the ASME A17.1 standard, which is why the section numbers look like A17.1 numbers. Everything here is New York City's own text.
Access doors to the machine room, control room or control space
Appendix K, Section 2.7.3.4.1, subsection (d), added by the city:
"(d) labeled “ELEVATOR EQUIPMENT” with letters not less than 51 mm (2 in.) high."
Two words, and a 2 inch letter minimum. Section 2.7.3 is headed "Access to machinery spaces, machine rooms, control spaces, and control rooms", so that is the scope.
The same subsection group also sets the door itself: Section 2.7.3.4.2 requires access doors to machine rooms, control rooms and control spaces to be a minimum 750 mm (29.5 in.) wide and 2,030 mm (80 in.) high, with Group 2 Security keys.
Access openings into the hoistway
Appendix K, Section 2.7.3.4.7, subsection (d), also added by the city, covering openings "where full bodily entry is not necessary for maintenance and inspection of components":
"(d) labeled “DANGER: ELEVATOR HOISTWAY” with letters not less than 51 mm (2 in.) high and have an electrical safety switch that will remove power from the hoist machine and brake if the door is opened."
Note that this one is not only a sign. The same subsection requires the safety switch. A label alone does not satisfy it.
Pit doors
Appendix K, in the pit door requirements:
"(f) Pit doors shall be labeled “DANGER, ELEVATOR PIT” with letters not less than 51 mm (2 in.) high."
Worth reading the punctuation. The hoistway legend uses a colon, "DANGER: ELEVATOR HOISTWAY". The pit legend uses a comma, "DANGER, ELEVATOR PIT". They are different signs.
Exterior hoistway windows
For existing buildings, Appendix K carries a requirement with a much larger letter height:
"Exterior hoistway-windows shall be marked with the word “SHAFTWAY” in red letters at least 6 inches (152 mm) high"
Six inches, red. This one is for the fire service approaching from outside, which is why it is sized to be read from a distance rather than at the door.
The tags on the equipment itself
Inside the room, Appendix K Section 8.11.1.6, another city addition, puts test and maintenance tags on named equipment: Category 1 on the controller, Category 5 on the controller, governor or governors, release carrier or carriers and oil buffer or buffers, and the brake maintenance tag on the controller. Each carries the test date, the category number and the name of the agency that performed the test. We covered the placement trap in where CAT 1 and CAT 5 tags go.
Appendix K also adds subsection (f) to Section 2.16.3.2.2 requiring data plates to indicate "the weight required for balanced load", which is a New York City addition rather than a national requirement.
And at the landing, which is a different rule
The landing signs come from the Building Code proper, not Appendix K. Section 3002.3 requires a sign "posted and maintained on every floor at the elevator landing" reading "IN FIRE EMERGENCY, DO NOT USE ELEVATOR. USE THE EXIT STAIRS.", in red block letters at least 1/2 inch on white, with a diagram of the floor and the stair letters, at least 10 by 12 inches, directly above a call button, top no more than 6 feet above the floor.
Section 3002.3.1 then requires each stair and each bank of elevators to be identified by an alphabetic letter, with the elevator bank letter posted at each landing directly above or as part of the 3002.3 sign, at least 3 inches high, bold and contrasting.
What we sell, and what we do not
We would rather tell you this than have you find out from an inspector.
Of the legends above, we do not currently stock "ELEVATOR EQUIPMENT", "DANGER: ELEVATOR HOISTWAY", "DANGER, ELEVATOR PIT" or "SHAFTWAY". Our machine room door signs read ELEVATOR MOTOR ROOM, ELEVATOR CONTROL ROOM and ACCESS DOOR. Those are identification signs. They are useful, buildings ask for them, and they are not the legends the sections above name. Every one of them says so on its own product page, which shows a specification and no code citation, because we only print a code section where we can show you the section.
What we do stock against the sections above: the CAT 1 and CAT 5 maintenance tag for 8.11.1.6, and the balanced load data plate for 2.16.3.2.2(f).
If you need one of the four we do not carry, tell us on WhatsApp. We would rather quote it than have you buy the wrong plate twice.
Where this article stops
Appendix K also names a long list of switch and button legends inside the car and on the controller, "FIRE RECALL", "CALL CANCEL", "ENABLE" and others. Those normally arrive with the equipment rather than as building signage, so they are outside this list.
And we have quoted only New York City's own text. The underlying ASME standard is copyrighted and not something we will paraphrase from memory. Related reading: what elevator code edition NYC actually uses.