Archive for November 2nd, 2005

Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.

The editors: James & Alex

Chicago’s Midway Airport

Wednesday, 2nd November 2005 by Alex

This is Chicago’s Midway Airport and yes, at the end of all the criss-crossing runways, and surrounding it on every side are houses. Midway is smack-bang in the middle of a residential area.

Chicago\'s Midway

Fortunately the airport has these tiny little buffers in place, presumably to stop any plane that might overshoot the runway from ploughing headlong into the junction on the other side of the fence. Scary stuff.

Runway buffer

These images were taken around 5 years ago, whilst the airport was being completely rebuilt (without ever closing), and you can clearly see where the old terminal building (with the black roof) has been partially torn down.

Just to the east of the new terminal building you can see the then brand-new multi-storey car park (which has some really cool exterior circular ramps joining the levels together), and slightly further east again is the Chicago Transit Authority’s Orange Line train yard. Speaking of trains, there’s also several other enormous trainyards in the area.

Spiral roadway

Thanks to Peter, Steve, Scott Steg and Cory.

New Bridge

Wednesday, 2nd November 2005 by James

The New Bridge, formerly the Slovak National Uprising (SNP) Bridge, is the world’s seventh largest suspension bridge and was declared the construction of the 20th century in Slovakia. The globe at the south side provides all the support for the bridge, so it does not require a pylon in the Danube. Here’s a ground level shot.

Built between 1967 and 1972 the upper deck was inaccessible in the Communist era as, at 95 metres above ground, it gave great views of capitalist Austria. These days you can visit either the observation deck, the ‘UFO Taste’ restaurant or ‘UFO Groove’, a “stylish nightclub” (apparently).

Thanks: Andrej Kvasnica, Jan Koubek