23. People found early escalators unnerving
It is sometimes reported that the first moving staircase known as an escalator was installed in the London Underground, and a man was hired to ride up and down all day to demonstrate its safe use to hesitant customers. Both are untrue. The first escalator installed in Great Britain was in Harrod’s in Knightsbridge, in 1898. Harrod’s enticed customers to use the escalator by making both smelling salts and fine cognac available as restoratives upon completing the ride between floors. Still, early escalators were regarded with hesitations on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, as were their vertical counterpart, elevators.
In America, the first escalators were installed at the Brooklyn Bridge on an experimental basis, using a design which was later incorporated with the subway system in Boston. Some of the escalators were still in use in Boston in the late 1990s. As their use expanded, fears of the devices ebbed, and many riders chose to walk up (or down) the moving staircase, leading to the evolution of escalator etiquette. Standing on the right, and passing on the left, became the generally accepted rule in the United States, where the same procedure applies to driving on a road.