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Huge airship anchored by its front, standing nearly upright. Incredible. (upload.wikimedia.org)

submitted ago by ctyt

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[–]crabby1990 1 point2 points ago

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A lot of people are not aware but the tower on the top of the Empire State Building was suppost to be for docking airships like the one shown in the picture. They even did it once with people being off loaded by having to walk accross a wooden board from the ship to the building.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

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really?

[–]crabby1990 0 points1 point ago

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I saw a program on the History channel about it a couple a years ago.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

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Seems legit. and safe in every possible way.

[–]crabby1990 0 points1 point ago

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You would think they would have thought of safety when making the plans . It was a different time.

[–]crabby1990 -1 points0 points ago

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Dirigible (airship) terminal

The building's distinctive Art Deco spire was originally designed to be a mooring mast and depot for dirigibles. The 102nd floor was originally a landing platform with a dirigible gangplank.[66] A particular elevator, traveling between the 86th and 102nd floors, was supposed to transport passengers after they checked in at the observation deck on the 86th floor.[67] However, the idea proved to be impractical and dangerous after a few attempts with airships, due to the powerful updrafts caused by the size of the building itself,[68] as well as the lack of mooring lines tying the other end of the craft to the ground.[6 That is a direct copy of the text from an article on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_State_Building

[–]Samsy 0 points1 point ago

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actually came here to share this bit of trivia too - apparently buildings all over New York (and other global metropolises?) were to have spires for docking airships, but the precarious nature of having to walk the plank, along with the Hindenburg disaster, meant that it never took off (if you'll pardon the pun)

[–]crabby1990 1 point2 points ago

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I love history like this.

[–]Samsy 0 points1 point ago

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yeah same - imagine the alternate timeline where out skyscrapers all have airships moored off their spires

[–]crabby1990 1 point2 points ago

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They showed something like that on Fringe.

[–]comedic_implement -1 points0 points ago*

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seems legit.

edit: I wasn't disagreeing, just commenting on the obviously bad idea

[–]crabby1990 0 points1 point ago

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Please do not take my word for it look it up yourself. I saw a program on it a couple of years ago on the History channel so it shouldn't be hard to find. If you want I will look for a link so you can see for your self.

[–]comedic_implement 0 points1 point ago

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iirc the original plan was to use the empire state building as a docking point but the high winds ending up making it next to impossible.

[–]crabby1990 0 points1 point ago

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Yes But they did do it once. You would think safety would be something they thought of even in those days.

[–]comedic_implement 0 points1 point ago

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Right but I think safety wasn't as a big of priority as "Hey look at this cool thing we can do"

[–]crabby1990 0 points1 point ago

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Sounds like it.

[–]crabby1990 -1 points0 points ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Dirigible (airship) terminal

The building's distinctive Art Deco spire was originally designed to be a mooring mast and depot for dirigibles. The 102nd floor was originally a landing platform with a dirigible gangplank.[66] A particular elevator, traveling between the 86th and 102nd floors, was supposed to transport passengers after they checked in at the observation deck on the 86th floor.[67] However, the idea proved to be impractical and dangerous after a few attempts with airships, due to the powerful updrafts caused by the size of the building itself,[68] as well as the lack of mooring lines tying the other end of the craft to the ground.[6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_State_Building That is a direct copy of the text from an article on Wikipedia.