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In the November 1939 issue of Popular Science, New York commercial artist Nicholas DeSantis designed a "metropolitan skyport of tomorrow". His five years of study led to a proposal that included a 200-story building topped off with a landing field spanning 8 city blocks long and three wide. And to top that all off, the 50 highest floors in the building were reserved for light aircraft, so one could commute to work in the city and leave their plane in the hangars while 250,000 private cars and taxis awaited to whisk them off to work.
The remaining floors under the “aerotrop-olis” would contain offices, restaurants, theaters and "two enormous arenas for football and baseball games." Needless to say, tomorrow never came and we're pretty sure these days a plan like this would be a logistical nightmare for the FAA. [via Boing Boing]
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As cool as it looks, the absolute awfulness of this idea should have been apparent even sixty-odd years before 9/11.
I'm still sorry that it never turned out to be possible to dock dirigibles at the Empire State Building, though.
If it relieves some of the pressure on three of the worst airports in the country (that is, for delays), I say go for it, but only if it also displaces 24 blocks of those undesireable low-income blacks.
i was looking at this and thinking "man, this is actually a really great idea"
...then i had a "Tribute to Fireworks"/Jack Donaghy moment of clarity.
I wonder how the jews would have planned 9/11 differently if this was in existence today?
I loooove retro-futurism.
"Sky Captain...you're squadron is clear for landing at the Aerotropolis...Alert! Nazis on jet packs at 12 o'clock!!"
Heh. Good reference, Nick S.