baloon

William F. Assmann

More: query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A02E2D71539E433A...

rat6666: Thanks for the information! We’ll look into it.

Man, was this ever a disappointing Google hit....

This link: www.hurherald.com/cgi-bin/db_scripts/articles?Action=user... discusses a Miss Sophia being flow by Afman and McCullough

Punchinello (bottom left) reminds me of an Ultraman character.

My next album will be titled "Grotesque Balloons".

Added to the gallery Oddities From the Commons 3

This is likely to be Professional balloon & airship pilot/stunt man Albert Leo "Prince Leo" Stevens. Look for his full list of accomplishments at www.ballooninghistory.com/whoswho/who'swho-s2.html

Given the date, this is perhaps taken on the roof of Wanamaker's - we see images elsewhere in the set. One wonders what the goal of that day's flight was.

I started an entry in Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Leo_Stevens This is at Broadway and Tenth Street in Manhattan at Wanamaker's BALLOON SETS SAIL FOR PHILADELPHIA; Passes Above Times Square, Gets Lost in a Jersey Fog Bank, and Lands at West Nyack. July 9, 1911, Sunday A large balloon with two men in the basket arose from the roof of the Wanamaker store at Broadway and Tenth Street at 6 o'clock last night, sailed leisurely across the city, up Seventh Avenue to Times Square, and then floated off across the Hudson and was lost in the haze that hung over Weehawken.

Another Bain/LOC photo of Stevens in the basket of the Wanamaker balloon:

Filling the balloon, on the roof of the New York City Wanamaker department store:

Are you sure that is a hot air balloon? I cannot see any aperture for the hot air. Might this not be a hydrogen-filled balloon?