Bridge Homes – A New Vision of the City
A 1925 New York Times Magazine article predicted people 50 years later (1975) might live in "bridge homes," high-rise apartments on bridges above the river.
Orrick Johns wrote:
An airplane view of Manhattan fifty years from now might show the high-plied island approached from a hundred angles by these giant populated avenues across the water.
Johns also envisioned the type of life that might result:
These great water-spanning towns would develop their peculiar community pride and ideals. Each would have its own churches, schools, shops, perhaps even a community theatre. Rivalry would exist between them over the prowess of their respective inhabitants, in art, in sport, in civic usefulness.
The complete equipment of the bridge-citizen would include aquaplane and motor boat as well as the prosaic autombobile.
...
One can anticipate a new neighborliness entering into city life, a sense of solidarity and common interests, something even of the comradeship of life on shipboard.
Today, the U.S. is short by about 4.5 million homes. While efforts are underway to convert everything from abandoned offices to abandoned churches into housing stock, why not use space hovering over some rivers? If they can get the architectural details ironed out, who knows... this idea just might work.
Bridge Homes – A New Vision of the City: They Are Only Dreams as Yet, But Architects Say They Are Practical
Published: February 22, 1925