JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post (Overall post #2515)
This wonderful display (appearing in The Illustrated London News for 26 March 1927, page 518) of quantitative data isn't quite as whimsical as it appears in detail, though I can think of only
a few (antiquarian) times that I have seen a ship made part of a cosmopolitan vertical cityscape. It is a great way of comparing two disparate, out-of-place equals, and certainly can get the idea of the size of something as stand-alone and solitary as a great ship to children (and adults, too) by comparing it to something as obvious as a tall building., This time its really just comparing the length of the SS Mauretania with the heights of some famous and notable buildings. (The Mauretania, 1906-1935, was a fabled, luxurious and fast ocean liner of the Cunard line; it was refitted for a resurgent oceanic service at about this time.) In the larger, expanded second image we see the Mauretania stacked up against (from left to right) the Washington Monument (555'), the Woolworth Building (792'), the Mauretania (790'), the Eiffel Tower (984'), the Larkin Building (proposed at 1208'), the Book Building (873'), the Koln Cathedral (512') and the Statue of Liberty (305'). The Larkin Building (not the F.L. Wright structure of the same name) was a proposed super-tall of 110 floors for 330 W. 42nd Street that was proposed in 1926 and not canceled until 1930, and which would've been the tallest building in the world. In any event, this was a big ship--the largest in the world when it was launched as a matter of fact--and the drawing is wonderful. (Upon closer inspection, there is a terrific amount of detail in the cross section of the ship.)
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