Escalator 25
Escalator 25 :
History: (3) Inventors and Manufacturers: (1. 4) Early European Manufacturers: Hallé, Hocquardt, and Piat: Piat installed its "stepless" escalator in Harrods Knightsbridge store on Wednesday, November 16, 1898, though the company relinquished its patent rights to the department store. Noted by Bill Lancaster in The Department Store: a Social History, "customers unnerved by the experience were revived by shopmen dispensing free smelling salts and cognac". The Harrods unit was a continuous leather belt made of "224 pieces. . . strongly linked together traveling in an upward direction," and was the first "moving staircase" in England. Hocquardt received European patent rights for the Fahrtreppe in 1906. After the Exposition, Hallé continued to sell its escalator device in Europe, but was eventually eclipsed in sales by other major manufacturers
