THE new exhibition at the Keith de Lellis Gallery, “New York: A Bird’s-Eye View,” has a striking assortment of aerial views of the city. No image is more arresting than that of the Navy dirigible Los Angeles docking at the mooring post of the Empire State Building, a giant cigarlike cylinder coming nose-to-nose with the tallest building in the world.

That the photograph is a composite, a fake, is disappointing but not surprising: no airship ever docked there, and indeed the whole mooring mast concept was a bit of a stunt itself.

In late 1929, Alfred E. Smith, the leader of a group of investors erecting the Empire State Building, announced that they were increasing the height of the building to 1,250 feet from 1,050. Mr. Smith, a past governor of New York, denied that competition with the 1,046-foot-high Chrysler Building was a factor. “We are measuring its rise by principles of economic investment rather than spectacular standards,” he told The New York Times.