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1907. April 6. Saturday at Bardeck[?]
World New York 27 Jan 1907.                            75

NEW YORK'S FIRST AIRSHIP STATION
It is to Be a Half-Way House Between Fort George and Coney Island and May Fulfil Santos-Dumont's Prophecy, After All, That We Are to Go to Coney Island in Airships Next Summer.

THE first fleet of passenger airships is to fly on a regular schedule from Fort George to Coney Island this summer.
 The first airship station in the world is to open at Broadway and Twenty-ninth street in a few months.
  No franchise is needed for navigating the air, so the projectors of this new rapid-transit route, this rival of the Subway, the elevated and the surface cars, will have no tax to pay to the city. They will incorporate the Aerial Navigation Company of America at Albany and will begin operating their airships at once. Fred Thompson and Joseph Weber are the pioneers in this movement, which may prove the solution of the rapid-transit problem.
  The promoters believe the experimental stage of the airship has passed, and they are backed in their opinion by all the airship experts with whom they have talked. Baldwin, Knabenshue and Stevens, all of whom have done much to push America to the front in the construction and flying of airships, have urged on the project.
  The proposed route is from Vanity Fair, the new amusement part at Fort George, to Luna Park, Coney Island, with one stop at Broadway and Tenty-ninth street. The course is to be steered by the pilot of the ship, which is as nearly as possible an air line, is about twenty miles.
  The thought of establishing an airship route came to Mr. Weber and Mr. Thompson at about the same time. Both men found that the undertaking from a money-making standpoint was impracticable. The great cost of constructing airships and the compensation demanded by the pilots made it impossible even to clear expenses, for, with the present type of airship, it would be impossible to carry more than three passengers on each trip. The honor that would be attached to the promoters of the first airship route in the world, however, induced both men to go ahead with the undertaking.
  It was due to the obstacles that each encountered that they eventually decided to go into the scheme together. In considering a route for airships that would connect the two immense amusement parks he and Mr. Dundy

cluding a twenty-minute stop at the Broadway station, will not require more than an hour. In the new machine which I am going in a few weeks to California to build for the new company I shall be able to carry three passengers easily."
  The new machine, which will be No. 1 of the Weber [[unintelligible]] Thompson Company, will be ninety feet long. It will be similar to the California airships in which Capt. Baldwin made several successful flights last summer. Plans for the stations at Vanity Fair, Weber's Theatre and Luna