Was laid in Newark, N.J. Previously, coal tar was used for many pavements laid in the 1860s. The first recorded asphalt pavement in the U.S. was a sand mix placed in front of the City Hall in Newark, N.J., in 1870. Edmund J. DeSmedt, a Belgian chemist (who became the inspector of asphalt and cements for the District of Columbia) held a U.S. patent for this asphalt paving method, granted on 31 May 1867. In that century most roads, even in cities, were wide dirt pathways, severely affected by weather. Smooth surfaced asphalt roads originally were for the benefit of bicyclists. By 1904, only 141 miles were surfaced, but commonplace by 1916. Natural asphalt deposits were originally used, but almost all of the asphalt used commercially is now made from petroleum.

(Electric Respirator) was installed at Bellevue hospital in New York for the post war polio epidemic. The first iron lung was developed at Harvard University by Phillip Drinker and Louis Agassiz Shaw built with two vacuum cleaners. The iron lung is a negative pressure machine which surrounds the patient's body except for the head, and alternates a negative atmospheric pressure with the ambient one, resulting in rhythmic expansion of the chest cage (and thus inhalation) in response to the negative extra thoracic pressure. During periods of ambient extrathoracic pressure, the lungs deflate. This type of machine is rarely used today.