Moving walkways

At the beginning of the 20th century, the idea of moving walkways was in vogue. After successes in Paris and Chicago, plans were drawn up for a three-speed moving sidewalk across the Brooklyn Bridge to alleviate traffic on the crowded bridge.

With the Brooklyn Bridge walkway, Schmidt upped the ante. This time he envisaged a loop system at each end of the bridge, with a series of four ever-faster walkways. Passengers moved from one to another until finally taking a seat on the benches aboard the fastest, which whisked them across the bridge at 16 km/h [~10 mph]. Because the system ran constantly, there would be no waiting and little momentum lost on stops and starts.

A house floats near Brooklyn

Here's an unusual bit of NYC sightseeing for tomorrow morning. Between 7:30 and 8:30am tomorrow, a house designed by influential architect Robert Venturi will be floating under the Brooklyn Bridge.

In a bid to avoid the wrecking ball, Venturi's Lieb House is traveling by barge from the New Jersey coast to the north shore of Long Island. During the two-day trip, the house will journey through the Atlantic Ocean, across New York Harbor, up the East River, and into Long Island Sound -- a distance of about 75 miles, as the seagull flies.

The floating house will be shown in an upcoming documentary about Venturi, his wife, and their architectural practice. (thx, ed)