You don’t have to dig very
deep to discover that what seems brand-new is in reality a rather old
idea. After all, didn’t Shakespeare making a living refashioning
well-worn tales?
The great USA magazine Popular Science dials
back the clock 75 years in its current issue, to November 1939, when it
published an artist rendering for a 200-story 'Airport Skyscraper' dubbed
“Aerotropolis” for Midtown Manhattan in New York City.
Talk about a super tall airport!
“Commuters living 100 miles or more from the city
would fly to work in their private planes,” Popular Science
writes, adding:
“Landing on the roof, they would descend by elevators
and moving platforms to an outdoor parking space for 250,000 private cars
and taxis, whence they would be whisked without delay to their destination.
“Similar facilities would serve passengers arriving
by transport planes and airship lines.
“The ‘Aerotropolis,’”(yes, somebody
had the name and the scheme 75 years ago) “would save time now lost
in journeying to and from airports far from the heart of a city,’
Popular Science writes.
If it had been built, the Manhattan Aerotropolis might
have been useful one sad night in 1942, when an Army B-25 was making its
way to LaGuardia in a ceiling zero fog and smacked into the 80th floor
of The Empire State Building.
This is the second time (to our knowledge) that an Aerotropolis
scheme has gone nowhere.
We reported some years ago about a plan to float a $350
million, taxpayer-supported bond to build an Aerotropolis in St. Louis,
Missouri. The plan was squashed when aviation consultant Michael Webber
screamed bloody murder about getting taxpayers to foot the bill, saying
it was at best an “iffy proposition.”
So alas, it seems Aerotropolis is where it began 75
years ago—still on the drawing boards.
Geoffrey |
