Floyd Bennett Field

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1998 map of Floyd Bennett Field from the National Park Service.

Floyd Bennett Field, now defunct as an active airport, was New York City's first municipal airport. Located in Brooklyn, originally on Barren Island, it is now physically part of Long Island due to the filling of a channel. A compacted dirt runway existed on the island prior to the municipal airport and was generously referred 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 recipient 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 was NOP but now uses the FAA Location Identifier NY22 for a heliport operated by the New York City Police Department. Many of the earliest surviving original structures were included in an historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of their significance as among the largest collection and best representatives of commercial 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 leased 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.

Aerial view of Bennett Field after taking off from JFK.

1 History
2 A Sampling of Associated Famous Aviators and Flights
3 Current Day
4 Timeline
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] 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 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 US Postal Service attracted commercial airlines. As an industry norm airlines used their the cargo area available on aircraft making passenger routes to carry airmail, guaranteeing a profit on empty flights, and often providing more revenue than passenger ticket sales on under-booked flights. As LaGuardia 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 relocate. This significantly contributed to the eventual demise of commercial air activities at the airfield. As a general aviation 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.(Blakemore, 1981)

During World War II, the facility was first leased and then sold to the US Navy for use by the military's airlift network. The noted pilot Eddie Schneider died in a training crash on the tarmac in 1940. Naval Air Station Brooklyn was deactivated in 1971.

In the interim, commercial aviation in New York City moved to 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.

[edit] A Sampling of Associated Famous Aviators and Flights

Floyd Bennett Field's most storied flight was probably that of Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan, who, in 1938, after repeatedly being denied permission by the authorities to attempt a non-stop flight to Ireland, "accidentally" crossed the Atlantic in a second-hand surplus aircraft 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, Laura Ingalls, 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 conjunction with record-breaking flights.

[edit] 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 acreage of natural grasslands in the region has declined from their historic range in the area (see: Hempstead Plains) due to urban sprawl, the Grasslands Restoration Management Project (GRAMP) was created to maintain a majority of the large expanse of open grassland in the middle of the historic former airfield. The purpose of the project is to in a small way compensate for some of the impact to the native flora and fauna that depend on such habitat lost on Long Island. 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.

One of the Concorde airplanes is slated to be on display at Bennett Field for 18 months, while the airplane's regular exhibit, the USS Intrepid, is moving out of it's regular West Side dock to be rehabilitated. The Concorde's owner, British Airways, wishes to see that their historic plane stay on public display in New York City until the Intrepid reopens. The modern super-sonic Concorde has no historic connection to the airfield however, which may make justifying its display at Floyd Bennett Field difficult, as the former airfield is an historic site and not strictly an "air museum". Long-standing NPS regulations, policies and procedures may require that the aircraft and exhibits on display be only be those that interpret the airfield's specific role in the development of aviation.

The Floyd Bennett Field has also been named as a likely location for limited-overs cricket matches between Australia and India currently being discussed for Summer 2007. ^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Timeline

1931 Airport dedication on May 23.
1932 Transcontinental air speed record on November 14 by Roscoe Turner who flew a Weddell-Williams, powered by a Pratt & Whitney Wasp Junior engine, to Burbank, California, in 12:33 hours, establishing a new East-West record on November 14.
1933 Crash and death of Francisco de Pinedo during takeoff on September 2.

[edit] See also

Transportation in New York City

[edit] References

Blakemore, Porter R. Historic structures report, Floyd Bennett Field, Gateway National Recreation Area. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service, Denver Service Center, Mid-Atlantic/North Atlantic Team, Branch of Historic Preservation (1981) ASIN: B0006E797W