Floyd Bennett Field
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Floyd Bennett Field, New York City's first municipal airport, was located in Brooklyn on Barren Island, which is now physically part of Long Island due to the filling in of a channel. A compacted dirt runway existed on the island prior to the municipal airport and was generously refered to as "Barren Island Airport", but was used primarily by only one pilot who took customers up for joy-rides. The modern municipal airport was named after the famed aviator and Medal of Honor winner Floyd Bennett (a Brooklyn resident at the time of his dramatic death), dedicated on June 26 1930, and officially opening on May 23 1931. The IATA airport code is NOP. Many of the earliest surviving original structures were included in an historic district included on the National Register of Historic Places because of their significance as among the largest collection and best representatives of civil aviation architecture from the period, as well as the significant contributions to civil aviation made there. As such, it was included in 1972 as part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, managed by the National Park Service. In 2006 4 of the 8 original airport hangars were adapted for re-use and opened as a community-based sports and entertainment complex by Aviator Sports and Recreation. However, the historic integrity of some of the hangars have therefore been alleged to be compromised by this conversion, in contradiction to the protections supposedly in place by their inclusion on the National Register.
History
New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia pushed for Floyd Bennett field to replace Newark Airport in Newark, New Jersey as the city's de facto main air terminal. He was only able to persuade American Airlines to move its Newark operations to the new airport, and many passengers complained that travel from Bennett Field took longer to get to Manhattan than from Newark. In an attempt to compensate for this and keep the airport competitive, LaGuardia ordered the New York Police Department to escort limousines from the airport to the city at high speeds. In addition, particularly in the early days of commercial aviation, freight - not passengers - provided the bulk of profits. As airmail was among the largest amount of air-freight at the time, airports having contracts with the Postal Service attracted commercial airlines who as an industry norm used their passenger routes to carry the mail, guaranteeing a profit on empty flights and often providing more profit than passenger ticket sales. As La Guardia was never able to convince the Postal Service to move its New York City operations from Newark to Floyd Bennett Field, neither did the airlines move. This significantly contributed to the eventual demise of commercial air activities at the airfield. As a civil airfield, however, it attracted the best record-breaking pilots of the Golden Age of Aviation because of its superior modern facilitites and excellent location for flying, hosting a number of air races (such as the Bendix Cup) in their hey-day.Famous Aviators and Flights
Its most storied flight, however, was probably that of Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan, who, in 1938, after repeatedly being denied permission by the government to attempt a non-stop flight to Ireland, "accidentally" crossed the Atlantic on a flight registered to go to California. In the midst of the Great Depression a hero-starved nation hailed Corrigan for his "accident", even unto giving him a ticker-tape parade in Manhattan upon his return (the authorities had him sail back on a ship).Famed aviator Wiley Post twice used the field for record-breaking round-the-world flights, and developed or adapted technology (such as the Sperry autopilot) there to aid him. Famous aviatrixes of the era such as Jackie Cochran, and even Amelia Earhart broke records at this airfield. Howard Hughes also used Floyd Bennett Field as the start and finish of his record-setting circumnavigation of the globe in ninety-one hours in July 1938. Media-savvy pilot Roscoe Turner was also a frequent visitor at this airfield, often in conjuction with record-breaking flights. Later, the commerical aviation program at Floyd Bennett was abandoned in favor of a new airport in Queens, which took advantage of the then-new Queens-Midtown Tunnel to Manhattan. That airport was quickly renamed LaGuardia Airport in recognition of the mayor's efforts to bring commercially-viable aviation to New York.
During World War II, the facility was used by the U.S. military's airlift network. The noted pilot Eddie Schneider died in a training crash on the tarmac in 1940. The Navy deactivated the naval airfield in 1971.
Current Day
The runways have been long closed, but they are very occasionally reopened for air shows. The NYPD has some divisions located on the historic former airfield. The Department's aviation base, with its fleet of Bell Jet Ranger helicopters, is housed in space leased from the National Park Service that was once the US Coast Guard Air Station Brooklyn, and is also now the headquarters for the NYPD Special Operations Division. The Driver Training Unit is also located there, using a section of former runway to teach new and veteran officers on the operation of the many different vehicles used by the department.Since 1995, Floyd Bennett Field has often been the site of the annual Gateway to the Nations - New York City Native American Heritage Celebration organized by the Redhawk Native American Arts Council.
Far from many of the brightest of nearby city lights, the former airfield offers among the best dark sky sites in the five boroughs. The Amateur Astronomers Association of New York meets there one night a month from May to December for observing sessions.
As the acerage of natural grasslands in the region has declined from their historic range in the area (see: Hempstead Plains) due to urban sprawl, the Grassslands Restoration Management Project was created to maintain the large expanse of open grassland in the middle of the historic former airfield in order to provide habitat for the native flora and fauna that depend on such habitat. The program is a joint venture of the National Park Service as the land manager agency, and the Audubon Society.
This historic former airport should not be confused with Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport (ICAO code KGFL), which is an active airport located in Queensbury, New York about fifty miles north of Albany.
External links
- [The Floyd Bennett Field Task Force]
- [Historic Floyd Bennett Field]
- [National Park Service]
- [Maps and aerial photos]
- * Street map from [Google Maps] or [Yahoo! Maps]
- * Topographic map from [TopoZone]
- * Aerial image or topographic map from [TerraServer-USA]
- * Satellite image from [Google Maps] or [Microsoft Virtual Earth]
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