I admit, that's terrifying and somewhat mind blowing. The landing gear collapsed while it was 'parked' - ultimately killing a person a block away with the blades.
New York Airways also flew to Wall Street (ground level landing) from Laguardia for around 40 bucks in today's money in the 70's.
Do you know what the price was?
$5 in 1977 is about $21.15 give or take a few cents according to most of the website i checked the numbers on.
So while it might be $5, that was definitely not as cheap as it might otherwise seem.
Regardless of the inflation adjustments, ~$20 is surprisingly inexpensive for a commuter helicopter ride, I wonder if the economies of scale really do bring it down or if they were still eating their losses trying to grow business at that price.
Taxi flat rate from Manhatten to JFK is over $50. How the price for a helicopter ride could be on the same order of magnitude as a taxi is beyond me.
An uber to JFK from Manhatten is ~$100 - that's still dirt cheap!
A helicopter can go in a straight line and land on the apron, right next to a waiting aircraft. How long is a ferry going to take to get all the way around Brooklyn, through the bays and where is it going to dock when it gets there?! That'd take hours.
20 minutes?! It's like 20 miles around Brooklyn. It'd need to be a 60 mph ferry! Does such a thing exist?
Wikipedia: 'New York Airways flew Vertol 107 helicopters from the rooftop helipad to Pan Am's terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport from December 21, 1965, to February 18, 1968, when the service ceased due to inadequate passenger loads. For a short part of that time, they also offered service to Teterboro Airport.
Service to JFK resumed in early 1977 using Sikorsky S-61s. On May 16, 1977, about one minute after an S-61L landed and its 20 passengers disembarked, the right front landing gear collapsed, causing the aircraft to topple onto its side with the rotors still turning. One of the five 20-foot (6.1 m) blades broke off and flew into a crowd of passengers waiting to board. Three men were killed instantly and another died later in a hospital. The blade sailed over the side of the building and killed a female pedestrian on the corner of Madison Avenue and 43rd Street. Two other people were seriously injured. Helicopter service was quickly suspended, and never resumed'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetLife_Building#Helicopter_se...