Chicago World's Fair -- Century of Progress Exposition -- Sky-ride



	Guide 1933 Fair Map of 1933 Fair 1934 Fair Map of 1934 Fair Greyhound Tour Topics Costs for Visitors Colors and Lights Downtown Shopping Postcard Greetings NEW Exhibits and Attractions Skyride Hall of Science Science Exhibits Firestone Tires Prehistoric Animals Wilson & Co. Meat Kraft Mayonnaise International Harvester Automobiles Railroads Air Travel Mail Foreign Exhibits Pantheon de la Guerre Colonial Village Foreign Villages Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not News Articles News Index Memories Family Memories World's Fair Diary NEW Trip to the Fair Rail Trip to the Fair Selling Coca-Cola E-mail Memories Links Links Page Contacts Page		THE SKY-RIDE INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE SKY-RIDE Cost—$1,4000,000 Height of Towers—628 feet—64 stories. Height of rocket ride—219 feet—23 stories. View—Four states visible from towers tops on a clear day. Elevators—Four to each tower. Two to the 219 foot level and two to the top. Speed—Low rise cars, 500 feet per minute, capacity 30. High rise cars, 700 feet per minute, capacity 20. There was an interesting exhibit of elevator machinery at the tower tops. Rocket cars—Ten in number each weighing 6200 pounds. Capacity, 36 passengers. Speed. 520 feet per minute, about 6 miles per hour. Rocket car operation—Traction cable pulled cars as they left the trusses jutting from each tower. The cars operated on their own motors into and out of the loading and unloading platforms. Span— 1850 feet, second longest in the world. The distance between counter-balances was 3050 feet. Employment—1652 men at various phases of the work. Planning—five months Construction—seven months Engineers— Robinson and Steinman, New York, Designers Joshua D'Esposito and I. F. Stern, Consulting Engineers Robert W. Hunt Co., Inspection The trip to the tops of the towers took less than one minute in Otis Automatic High-Speed Elevators. The eight Skyride elevators carried 6,000,000 passengers in five and one-half months in 1933--a new record for instensive elevator service. You could go behind the scenes and see these elevator machines in operation. Steel cable overhead tracks connected the towers at the 210-foot level giving an unmatched observation ride in double-decked rocket shaped cars suspended beneath the rails. The cars were so constructed as to give an unobstructed view in all directions. An endless traction cable drew them across the span, the ride taking about four minutes. There were ten of the cars, each in charge of a certified aerial pilot. An observation platform was at the top of each tower. An article in the Chicago Sunday Tribune dated June 9. 1935 described the demolition of west tower of the Sky-Ride. Forty World's Fair police and fifty park police guarded the area. A charge of 125 pounds of dynamite was set off under the ground plates of supporting cables. The wreckage was transported on trucks to the Midland Steel and Equipment Company which had purchased it. At that time, the other tower was expected to be destroyed when Northerly Island was cleared of other structures. This page contains information from the backs of the Otis Elevator postcards, a small Sky-Ride pamphlet, the "Official World's Fair Weekly" No. 25, and the Chicago Sunday Tribune. Home Top