Escalator Inventor, Jesse W. Reno’s New Life Preserver Gets A Test In New York
Buoys And Girls – In New War On Drowning
New York – These lucky buoys are embracing the quartet of pretty maidens who assisted at the tests of a new life preserver at the Park Central Hotel pool today (Tuesday.) The device is said to be of one third the weight and three times the buoyancy of the present cork life vests. The belts are the invention of Jesse W. Reno, well known engineer who also invented the modern escalator or moving stairway. The girls are, left to right: Dorothy Day, Pat Hughes, Prudence Edgar and Sherry Pelham. photo: International News Photos 5-3-1932
As this old news photo confirms, getting publicity for a product usually works when you have pretty women pose with it.
Jesse W. Reno
Engineer Jesse Wilford Reno has an extremely short biography on Wikipedia. Reno’s entry says he invented the escalator and claims it was first installed at the Iron Pier at Coney Island in 1891.
But when Reno died at the age of 85, his obituary appearing in The New York Herald Tribune on June 3 1947, says Reno’s first escalator was installed at The Third Avenue Elevated Railway station at 59th Street. The second escalator was placed in Bloomingdales department store at the same location.
A more contemporary source contradicts both Wikipedia and the Herald Tribune.
The January 16, 1897 Scientific American magazine says the escalator was first seen and tested by the public at Coney Island in September 1896 when 75,000 people rode and marveled at “the lazy man’s friend.” An escalator was installed for use at the New York end of The Brooklyn Bridge in 1897.
Reno’s Inclined Elevator Company was sold to Otis Elevator in 1910. He continued on as a consultant to Otis. Reno later devised a system for raising sunken ships with vertical pontoons.
The new life preserver was mentioned in several newspapers in May 1932. But no article details what the life preservers’ were made of or when it might be available for sale. If Reno’s life preserver did achieve any success, it was never mentioned in future news reports.
As a side note, the city of Reno, Nevada has a connection to Jesse W. Reno. The city is named after Jesse W. Reno’s father, Jesse Lee Reno, a Brigadier General killed in the Civil War.
