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The Aeronautic Society of New York

The rapid progress of work at the Park, and the nearness of the grounds to the city, together with their great fitness for the holding of an exhibition, suggested to the Society that it should give a public exhibition, and try to do itself what it had been prevented from doing when it started to make arrangements for the visit of Leon Delagrange. The day of the Presidential election, Nov. 3rd, was chosen as the date. It was estimated that more than 20,000 persons were present. The crowd proved so unexpectedly large that it was unmanageable, and where it did not absolutely prevent the events from taking place, it caused accidents, one of which was very serious.

But the time was yet too early. This was the first exhibition of the sort ever arranged, and the art was not quite ready for it. None of the full-sized machines were completed in time, though it had been promised they would be; and accidents, both before and on the day, either made impossible, or marred, many of the events prepared for the program. But withal, a very remarkable display of original apparatus was made, even without making allowance for the circumstance that it was all the work of only a few weeks. It is also worthy of remembrance that this first exhibition which the world had ever seen was a financial success, though only a small proportion of the 20,000 visitors passed through the turnstiles. During the years that the racetrack had lain unused most of its fences had been broken down. The payment for admission proved a matter of almost Quixotic courtesy.

Mr. Kimball was not able to get his helicopter finished for an actual trial. C. W. Williams had installed in his monoplane a 7 h. p. engine just to show the movement and principle of his machine. The Beach-Whitehead aeroplane was not finished in time either.

[[image - black & white photograph of two men standing next to a biplane with two propellers]]
[[caption]] Beach-Whitehead Biplane [[/caption]]

Still there were three machines which illustrated completely the three different lines upon which all inventors are still working, the biplane, monoplane, and helicopter. Indeed they went even further. For the Beach-Whitehad apparatus also suggested the possibility of a new line, the combination of the long body of the monoplane with the double surfaces of the biplane. As such, they constituted a very striking and worthy exhibition.

Hardly any of the public at that time knew what a glider was. To-day such a display