Ancient Rome: The Rise of Apartments

The state of the art in high-rise living, New York City’s Time Warner Center features all the amenities: a health club, restaurants, dry cleaners, top notch security, and citywide views. But high-rise, high-density living isn’t new. Romans were living in high-rise apartments 2,000 years ago. Host Michael Guillen travels to Rome and its ancient seaport of Ostia where a number of them still exist. He illustrates many similarities we share with the ancient Romans including health clubs and dry cleaners. Food of all kinds was available at restaurants called thermopelia. As for the apartment complexes, some were as high as seven stories but building with un-reinforced concrete limited their height. We travel to Bath, England for an appreciation of the brilliantly designed Roman baths. Michael shows how ancient dry cleaners, known as fullers, cleaned garments with human waste. And the Los Angeles Fire Department helps demonstrate the Roman fire pump.