While the name is pretty staid and unimpressive, the Westinghouse Vertical Parking Machine was a marvel in 1932 when it was installed and put into use at a parking lot in Chicago. With space for 48 cars, it was thought to be a great solution to help ease parking difficulty in cities with ever swelling numbers of drivers. The beauty of the Westinghouse Vertical Parking Machine was that it only took up the width of six parking spots and could hold so many vehicles on its myriad of rotating slots. As you will see, each moving parking space was suspended from above and they traveled round and round like cars on a ferris wheel. With its huge steel support beams and multi-story height, this contraption had to have been a sight to behold and the first customers of the service were probably considered very brave to send their automobiles way up into the air with only their faith in Westinghouse engineers to buoy their fears of disaster. As best we can tell, disaster never came and the unit was used for years in the parking lot for people to park in. The original test unit was built in Pittsburgh and the Chicago machine you see in the video is the first one used for profit.
Unfortunately we have no idea how long it operated, how many of them were ever sold, or if Westinghouse actually made money on these but we sure wish we had a time machine to see this one in operation. 1930s audio being what it is, we can’t hear if it was banging and clanging away or if operation was pretty quiet. We have to imagine that there was groaning and clanking though, right? If you are familiar with Chicago (and we’re not) this building in the video was apparently located at Fullerton Ave and N. Sheffield street. If someone’s around they need to swing by and zap a photo of what this area looks like today.
Until then, check out this steel monster that held nearly 50 big, heavy, pre-WWII cars in downtown Chicago. The idea still makes a lot of sense today and in places like Japan and smaller European cities we know that there are LOTS of inventive parking solutions. Consider the Westinghouse Vertical Parking Machine their grandfather.
PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE THE WESTINGHOUSE VERTICAL PARKING MACHINE IN ACTION CIRCA THE 1930S!
Cool, its the grand daddy of the underground Japanese bicycle storage machine. There was something similar in the movie ‘Anger Management’ which by the way was terrible and I would not recommend it to anyone with more than three brain cells.
They need these things in any town bigger than 10,000.
We’ve got 6 stackers just like those in the building where I work. Each one holds 22 vehicles. They’re pretty cool.
http://www.woohome.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/volkswagen_storage_towers1.jpg
VW has a pretty cool automated storage garage.
VW has a modern version:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JguJpX7bS6k
I know of one here in Barcelona, rather a tight fit with larger cars.
There used to be one similar to this in Atlantic City in the 70’s and 80’s !!!