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Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
141–150 of 215 posts
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#142I'd guess that Heinlein was aware of it and scaled it up in his imagination. The Roads must roll — they are the arteries of the nation. When they stop, everything stops. Factories idle, food rots, men starve. The nation cannot live without its Roads. A thousand feet wide, level as a floor, strip after strip moving past in ordered procession. The slow strips on the outside moved at five miles an hour; the inner ones f…
Asimov went into some detail with this premise too, in Caves of Steel iirc. I suppose he probably got it from Heinlein.
Caves of Steel indeed (I seem to recall a more elaborate section but can't find it again):
There was the usual, entirely normal crowd on the expressway: the standees on the lower level and those with seat privileges above. A continuous trickle of humanity filtered on the expressway, across the decelerating strips to localways or into the stationaries that led under arches or over bridges into the endless mazes of the City Sections. Another trickle, just as continuous, worked inward from the other side, across the accelerating strips and onto the expressway.
There were the infinite lights: the luminous walls and ceilings that seemed to drip cool, even phosphorescence; the flashing advertisements screaming for attention; the harsh, steady gleam of the “lightworms” that directed THIS WAY TO JERSEY SECTIONS, FOLLOW ARROWS TO EAST RIVER SHUTTLE, UPPER LEVEL FOR ALL WAYS TO LONG ISLAND SECTIONS.
Most of all there was the noise that was inseparable from life: the sound of millions talking, laughing, coughing, calling, humming, breathing.
No directions anywhere to Spacetown, thought Baley.
He stepped from strip to strip with the ease of a lifetime’s practice. Children learned to “hop the strips” as soon as they learned to walk. Baley scarcely felt the jerk of acceleration as his velocity increased with each step. He was not even aware that he leaned forward against the force. In thirty seconds he had reached the final sixty-mile-an-hour strip and could step aboard the railed and glassed-in moving platform that was the expressway.
No directions to Spacetown, he thought.
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#143I'd guess that Heinlein was aware of it and scaled it up in his imagination. The Roads must roll — they are the arteries of the nation. When they stop, everything stops. Factories idle, food rots, men starve. The nation cannot live without its Roads. A thousand feet wide, level as a floor, strip after strip moving past in ordered procession. The slow strips on the outside moved at five miles an hour; the inner ones f…
It was a recurring theme throughout most of Golden Age fiction. E.g. Clifford D. Simak mentions them as a mode of transportation in The Goblin Reservation , Asimov has them in Robots of Dawn , and I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty more. It could be that it was Heinlein who kicked of the trend.
Back in the heyday there was this idea of the arcology where a group of people had it with their government and made their own city-utopia which would rule itself.
Very often in those they featured technology like the staggered automated walkways for transporting people around, etc.
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#144Somewhat off-topic, but why are all the men in the film wearing hats? Was this some sort of dress code?
People were spending much more time outside and the roads were much more dusty. You need a hat to keep yourself from the sun and the dust. Cars made them obsolete.
They also make it way easier to great people even over some distance, without awkwardly moving your hand in the air or shouting and annoying all the others.
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Romanticizing horses, specifically, is a very rose colored glasses situation. Apologies, I wasn't trying to romanticize the horse aspect. Rather, the public transit and train shipping aspect. In the US, at one point trains were so popular that even rural farms would have small train depots to load up crops on and ultimately ship goods wherever they need to be. You'd even find stores with train station docking. In f…
Rail can't take you to suburbs is basically the main reason this happened.
Ever heard of trams and busses?
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#146I love the kid who is hamming it up at the bottom of the frame. I've been a photographer/videographer for my entire professional career and have run into this kid many, many times. Adults exhibit this behavior too but it is usually much more moderated. This kid had to know what a camera was, which end was filming (some early film cameras appeared to be simple boxes), and wanted to make his mark on the final product.
It’s crazy to me watching this and thinking that if that kid lived to 100 he would’ve died 30+ years ago. That unknown child will be forever captured on this film. Every time I watch old films with children in them I always think about how they’ve been dead, hopefully of old age, for a long time already.
There's a German black-and-white comedy "Die Feuerzangenbowle" from 1944 and most of the actors knew this was going to be their last film. They were drafted into the war right after filming wrapped up and all of them died, apart from the main star.
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#147Does anyone know why we don't have these anymore, except in buildings like airports and shopping malls?
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#148I love the kid who is hamming it up at the bottom of the frame. I've been a photographer/videographer for my entire professional career and have run into this kid many, many times. Adults exhibit this behavior too but it is usually much more moderated. This kid had to know what a camera was, which end was filming (some early film cameras appeared to be simple boxes), and wanted to make his mark on the final product.
It’s crazy to me watching this and thinking that if that kid lived to 100 he would’ve died 30+ years ago. That unknown child will be forever captured on this film. Every time I watch old films with children in them I always think about how they’ve been dead, hopefully of old age, for a long time already.
Not to be grim, but he was the perfect age class to spend 4 years in the trenches...
The French males born in 1894 had a 92% mobilization rate (those who survived infant mortality that was still huge at the time). In 1920, only 48% of this age class was still alive (the big three killer being infant mortality, combat losses and the "Spanish" (Kansas) flu).
See figure 2a in https://shs.cairn.info/revue-population-et-societes-2014-4-p...
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Larry Niven called them slidewalks and I've always been sorry this terminology never caught on.
In the UK, Singapore and maybe other countries with British influence, they use the word travelator, which I find quite cool as well.
Just like an escalator, but without the escalation!
Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)
#150Does anyone know why we don't have these anymore, except in buildings like airports and shopping malls?
Maybe because in airports people are sometimes required to walk long distances to go from one point to another, while in a city there are public transport, bicycles, taxis, etc. plenty of other options so walking long distances is usually not required.