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tion, and made up my mind I was going to build an airship in which I could sit down and wouldn't run the risk of losing my life.  We reached 14th Street, turned, and flew back easily.  The motor ran better than ever before.  We made a perfect landing in the big field near the zoo.  I had never seen such a large crowd before but the police were equal to the occasion and we were able to walk the airship back to the lot.  But the propeller and rudder had been ripped to ribbons by souvenir hunters.  
    The New World, August 27, 1905, reported:
    "A. Roy Kobenshue, the man who made New 
    York wonder, is twenty-eight years old 
    and the son of S. S. Knabenshue, a 
    formerly editor of the Toledo Blade.  He 
    had been ballooning ever since he was out 
    of his teens.  Last year he made the 
    first really successful airship flight 
    ever made in the United States, 
    navigating Capt. Thomas Baldwin's 
    California Arrow with perfect success 
    over the Exposition Grounds.  Later he 
    went to the Pacific Coast with Capt. 
    Baldwin and at Los Angeles established 
    further reputation by the daring and 
    complete success of his flights.  To-day 
    he stands pre-eminent in his profession, 
    and will go down in history as the first 
    man who ever successfully sailed over New 
    York City in an airship and returned to 
    the point whence he started."
    And, again, the New York World, August 
    27, 1905 reported: "Who was the most 
    talked of main in New York during the 
    past week?
       Ask Fifth Avenue, Wall Street, the Bowery-east side, west side-everybody from Harlem to the Battery, and then ask every commuter for twenty miles around the greater