The LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin, one of the most magnificent non-rigid airships (aka ‘Dirigible’ or ‘blimps’) ever produced, made an appearance over New York City at the completion of its twenty-one day round-the-world flight (which was sponsored by William Randolph Hearst) on August 29, 1929. The city stopped in its tracks, as the cutting-edge aviation technology floated into view. My father remembered the day well–he was only eight years old but the Bronx was as taken with the sight of the magisterial machine as everyone in the city was. This lovely short doc (eight minutes) shows footage of the city on that day as well as the ships landing in Lakehurst, New Jersey, later the site of a much less fortunate Dirigible landing. There are two amazing moments–one of a mad newsreel cameraman walking on a steel beam of a skyscraper under construction in order to get the shot we see at 3:25, in which the blimp emerges from clouds in a truly stunning shot. For more on the Graf Zeppelin, click here to go to a very interesting website called Airships.Net. which is devoted exclusively to the history of blimps from that era. There’s even a floorpan–or ‘deck plan’–of the damn thing on view. Where is LZ-127 now? Nowhere. It was scrapped in 1940 for reasons I’m unsure of. There’s a proverb that’s probably Chinese that goes: “Man builds in order to tear down’, or something to that effect. Alas, so true…