When New Yorkers take an airline flight, they go to one of three major airports – Newark, LaGuardia or JFK. But before any of them existed, New York’s first commercial airport was Floyd Bennett Field, in a still-underdeveloped area of southeast Brooklyn, just northwest of the Gil Hodges Bridge to the Rockaways.
Never a commercial success during its era of the 1930s, the airport became known instead as the jumping-off point for many ground-breaking flights by famous aviators such as Howard Hughes (the reclusive movie producer was also a pilot), Amelia Earhart, Laura Ingalls, and Wiley Post, who started and ended his round-the world flight there.
Floyd Bennett was even the starting point for the infamous Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan, who told flight authorities that he planned to fly his second-hand plane to California but somehow ended up in Dublin instead. As late as 1957, after the facility was taken over by the Navy, Major John Glenn, the future astronaut, landed at Floyd Bennett Field after setting a transcontinental speed record.
Today, Floyd Bennett Field is part of Gateway National Recreation Area, administered by the U.S. National Park Service. Its main building, the Ryan Visitor Center (the former passenger terminal), and most of its hangars have been rehabilitated. On Saturday, March 3, the Municipal Art Society sponsored a tour of Floyd Bennett Field, led by licensed NYC tour guide Lloyd Trufelman with an assist from Park Ranger Lincoln Hallowell.
According to Trufelman, Newark Airport, the first major airport to serve the metropolitan area, came first. Still, there was a sense that New York City needed its own airport. A committee headed by Clarence Chamberlin, the second U.S pilot to cross the Atlantic after Charles Lindbergh, looked for a site for the new facility. Chamberlin chose the current site, formally known as Barren Island. But even after Floyd Bennett Field opened in 1930, it failed to get the U.S. air mail contract that would have made it profitable. It was faster to get the bring the mail in by truck from Newark via the Holland Tunnel than from Floyd Bennett — the Belt Parkway wouldn’t be open until 1940.
Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia wasn’t pleased at this state of affairs. Trufelman said that in 1934, when a flight he was on landed at Newark Airport, he yelled and carried on until the pilot agreed to fly to Floyd Bennett instead. Still, the Post Office reaffirmed its choice of Newark.
During the ‘30s, said Trufelman, the only scheduled passenger flights using Floyd Bennett Field were one daily trip to Boston and another from that city, although sometimes other flights were diverted to Floyd Bennett from Newark because of weather conditions. It continued to serve as a staging area for celebrity pilots and their high-profile flights.
In 1939, La Guardia Airport (then the New York Municipal Airport) opened. In May 1941, Floyd Bennett was closed to all commercial and general air traffic. In June, with World War II raging in Europe, the U.S. Navy opened its Naval Air Station at Floyd Bennett, and the following year it took over the rest of the airfield. The Naval facility remained active until 1970, and the Coast Guard maintained a helicopter base there through the ’90s. Even today, there’s a police helicopter facility on part of the site.
Trufelman then showed us around the building, pointing out what had been there in the ‘30s. For example, it once contained a barbershop and dormitory-type rooms for pilots, since flying by night was forbidden then. It also had a restaurant that in 1933, with the repeal of Prohibition, was transformed into a bar. Finally, it contained a telephone room; a Western Union telegraph room; a studio for WNYC, the city radio station; and as a press room, since in those days, “flying was news.”
Pointing to a photo of actress Gloria Swanson getting out of a plane, Trufelman said that “this was the type of person who flew in the 1930s—only the wealthy traveled by air.” We also saw a painting of Floyd Bennett himself – a U.S. Navy pilot who, along with Commander Richard Byrd, made the first flight to the North Pole in 1926 (although the claim was later contested).
We then went up to the control-tower room. During World War II, since many men had gone to war, the Navy recruited young women from Hunter College to be trained as WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service) so they could work as air traffic controllers. Inside the glass-covered tower, Park Ranger Hallowell said, it was so hot that people could only work half-hour shifts – and they couldn’t open the windows because birds would fly in. Soon, both men and women performed their jobs there in bathing suits.
Toward the end of the tour, Trufelman took the group to the hangar area. Four hangars are occupied by the Aviator Sports Center, which we didn’t visit but offers skating, basketball, volleyball and more. Hangars 1 and 2 have been rehabilitated by The Williams Companies and are used as natural gas distribution facilities.
Hangars 3 and 4 have not been rehabilitated, are used by the National Park Service for storage. They show the effects of deterioration, such as exposed wood where paint has worn off.
Trufelman saved the best for last when he took the group to Hangar B, where historic aircraft restored by the Historic Aircraft Restoration Project (HARP) are on display. Many of the volunteers who painstakingly restore the aircraft are veterans of World War 2, Korea and Vietnam.
The aircraft range from a replica of the Wright Brothers’ 1903 biplane to World War II aircraft to a 1967 Coast Guard search-and-rescue helicopter, and everything in between. Trufelman called the facility “New York’s secret National Air and Museum,” referring to the famed Washington, D.C. institution.
CAPTIONS
RYAN VISITORS CENTER
The Ryan Visitors Center, the former passenger terminal at Floyd Bennett Field.
Photos by Raanan Geberer
TOUR LEADER LLOYD TRUFELMAN
Lloyd Trufelman, leader of the recent tour of Floyd Bennett Field.
PARK RANGER LINCOLN HALLOWELL
Park Ranger Lincoln Hallowell, who also spoke to the tour-goers.
HANGAR NUMBER 1
Hangar Number 1, restored and used by The Williams Companies, which won a historic preservation award for its efforts.
BIPLANE
A biplane, or two-winged aircraft. Biplanes were phased out during the 1930s, but continued to be used for training flights.
WW2 AMBULANCE
A World War II-era Dodge ambulance.
C-47
A C-47, the main transport plane used during World War II. It could carry up to 6,000 pounds of cargo.
