Was that thing ever actually used with a passenger dirigible?
I just can’t imagine too many people being able to walk across whatever sort of ramp or stairway there might have been, subject to instability in wind, over a hundred stories up.
The pucker factor must’ve been something else, even for trained personnel, let alone passengers, if it ever occurred.
I recall seeing that it was never used. There should be a full set of plans archived with the building blueprints detailing the equipment.
I agree, pucker factor would be way up there.
Unfortunately, not much research was done as to whether or not a dirigible could anchor to the top of a building in the middle of a city. Usually, dirigibles were anchored by many ropes in the middle of an airfield, purposely away from the center of cities.
Only once did a dirigible dock at the mast. In September 1931, a small, privately owned dirigible made contact with the top of the Empire State Building. Dropping a long rope, a ground crew of three were able to catch the rope and hold onto it. Though it took the small dirigible over half an hour to accomplish this, it was only able to stay moored for three minutes.
It was determined that the air drafts from the height of the building, the danger of explosions over a city, as well as the infeasibility of tying up a dirigible by a single rope caused the mooring mast on top of the Empire State Building to be unusable.
http://history1900s.about.com/od/1930s/a/empirestatemast.htm