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Floyd Bennett Field Historic District
Miller Army Air Field Historic District
Floyd Bennett Field, on Barren Island, Jamaica Bay, was the first municipal airport in New York City. Constructed between 1928 and 1931 by the City Department of Docks, the airport was designed to divert the increasing volume of air traffic to New York City away from Newark Airport where the vast majority of New York bound flights terminated. By 1933, Floyd Bennett Field was the second busiest airport in the country, with 51,828 landings and takeoffs, but only a minor percentage of this actively consisted of the mail, freight and commercial passengers which generated revenue. The field was named in honor of naval aviator Floyd Bennett, pilot of the first flight over the North Pole in 1926. Bennett later died in 1928 from pneumonia that developed following extensive injuries from an earlier crash. Following the opening of Idlewild Airport in 1939, Floyd Bennett Field was closed to commercial use and conveyed to the U.S. Navy in 1941. Although the Navy enlarged the field, the original complex of steel frame and brick hangars and support buildings has not been substantially altered, and thus Floyd Bennett Field retains the architectural design and historic integrity of an early municipal airport.
Floyd Bennett Field is also important for its association with significant early aviators. Because of its unusually long runways and fair weather conditions, Floyd Bennett Field became noted as a prime airport for the experimental fliers who sought to establish speed and distance records. In 1933 Wiley Post broke his previous record for an around-the-world flight landing at Floyd Bennett Field seven days, 18 hours and 49 minutes after he took off from there on July 15. In 1938, Howard Hughes with a crew of four made an around-the-world flight starting and finishing at Floyd Bennett Field. This flight, which covered 14,791 miles in three days, 19 hours, eight minutes and 10 seconds, was made to collect navigational data. Shortly after Hughes's flight, Douglas Corrigan embarked from Floyd Bennett Field supposedly on a flight to California. Corrigan flew instead to Ireland, thus fulfilling his wish to make a Trans-Atlantic flight. For this apparent lack of orientation, Corrigan lost his experimental license and earned the nickname "Wrong-Way." Interest in these records reflected public enthusiasm about aviation and contributed to improving technical aspects and piloting skills.
The first and most important buildings to be erected at the field were the complex of four pairs of hangars built between 1929 and 1931. The basically identical hangars are of steel frame construction with steel trussed arched roofs and wooden decks. Each hangar has a concrete slab floor and is supported by 45-foot-long precast concrete piles, which have been sunk into the ground. The inside dimensions of each hangar are 120 feet by 140 feet. Attached to the exterior side of each hangar is a two-story service wing, constructed of buff colored brick, which measures 20 feet by 120 feet. Between 1936 and 1938, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed central service wings between the paired hangars, creating one continuous line of hangars. These two-story wings were made of the same brick and along the same lines as the side wings and housed machine shops and other maintenance facilities. The administration building, constructed in 1931, is a red and black brick building, two stories high and constructed in a neo-Georgian style. The eastern façade, which faces the runway, is dominated by a semi-octagonal projecting bay, three stories tall and topped with the steel framed and glass enclosed control booth. There is a small deck, enclosed with aluminum railing, surrounding the control booth. On either side of the projecting bay, at the first-story level, there is an observation deck, enclosed by balustrades and reached by a granite stairway.
From 1929 through 1931, following the creation of the 387-acre area, two reinforced runways were laid. Both runways were 100 feet wide; one was 4200 feet long and oriented on a northeast-southwest axis and the other was 3,110 feet long and oriented on a north-northwest-south-southwest axis. The runways, located to the east of the building complex, formed a T, with the intersection slightly south of the administration building site. A concrete taxiway was also constructed at this time--it was parallel to the shorter of the runways and located to the west of it and east of the hangars. Two more runways were constructed by the WPA from 1937 to 1938. The shorter of these runways was laid on an approximately north-south axis, extending 4000 feet north from its intersection with the southern end of the earlier, 3100 feet runway. The longer of the new runways extended southeast for 5,500 feet from the northern terminus of the 3,100-foot runway. The rest of the airfield was planted with grass, to prevent drifting.
Floyd Bennett Field Historic District is part of the Jamaica Bay Unit of the National Park Service's Gateway National Recreation Area in New York, across the Marine Parkway Bridge from Jacob Riis Park and the U.S. Coast Guard Station and U.S. Military Reservation Fort Tilden. The Floyd Bennett Field administration building is now the Ryan Visitor Center, open daily 8:30am to 5:00pm. The public is welcome to observe the Historic Aircraft Restoration Project--the restoration of 12 aircraft in Hangar B--on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Call 718-338-3799 or visit the park's website for further information. More information and photos of Floyd Bennett Field can also be found at this website.
The Marine Air Terminal at La Guardia Airport in New York City remains the only active airport terminal dating from the first generation of passenger travel in the United States--the "Golden Age of the Flying Boat." The Marine Air Terminal, an Art Deco building designed in 1939 by William Delano of the firm Delano & Aldrich, is comprised of a central circular core of two stories with an attic from which a rectangular entrance pavilion and two symmetrically opposed one-story wings project. Inside the terminal hangs "Flight," a mural measuring 12 feet in height and 237 feet in length. Completed by James Brooks in 1940, "Flight" depicts the history of man's involvement with flight.
By the early 1930s, commercial airlines and airports were developing due to the Federal government's use of private contractors for postal transport and Charles Lindbergh's famous transatlantic flight. New York was in dire need of a new airport by 1934 when Fiorello H. La Guardia was elected mayor. Plans for the airport, which was to be federally sponsored and funded through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), were approved by President Roosevelt on September 3, 1937. Only six days later, the Mayor presided over groundbreaking ceremonies and construction proceeded rapidly. At 558 acres with nearly four miles of runways, the $40,000,000 airport was the largest and most expensive in the world. New York City Airport--La Guardia Field opened on October 15, 1939 and the Marine Air Terminal was dedicated in March 1940. The first flight from the Marine Air Terminal by a Clipper departed on March 31, 1940, carrying a crew of 10, nine passengers and over 5,000 pounds of mail and landed in Lisbon 18 hours and 30 minutes later. These Clippers--with a wing span of 152 feet, a cruising speed of 200mph and a capacity to carry 72 passengers--were luxurious. The two-deck interior featured dining rooms, private compartments and sleeping sections. However, this glamorous era of the Clippers was brought to an abrupt halt by the outbreak of World War II. By the end of the war, technological advances in airplane design had made the Clippers obsolete and the Marine Air Terminal was converted for the newer airplanes. Today the Marine Air Terminal is used by commuter airlines, air taxis, private aircraft, Signature Flight Support (a fixed-base operator) and a weather service.
The Marine Air Terminal is located at La Guardia Airport in New York City. It is still an active terminal, open during normal hours of operation. Please visit the airport's website for further information.
Miller Army Airfield, on New York's Staten Island, was established from 1919 to 1921 as part of the aerial coast defense system formed to supplement existing coast defenses, and reflects early, experimental years in aviation history. The field was well located for harbor defense purposes as it was centrally situated between Fort Wadsworth and Fort Hamilton on either side of the narrows, Fort Hancock on Sandy Hook and Fort Tilden on the Rockway Peninsula. The Miller Army Airfield Historic District includes a double seaplane hangar and lighthouse. The double seaplane hangar, constructed in 1920, is the most important building remaining at Miller Field because of its direct association with early aviation history. The Monitot Type hangar was constructed by Smith, Hansen and MacIssac and Rangely Construction Company, both of New York. The seaplane hangar was constructed as part of the Hangar Group of Buildings which included an airplane hangar, an aero repair shop, a boiler house, an aero store-house, a motor test house, an armorers house, a fuel additive house, a pier and boat house, a gasoline pumping system, a water supply system and sewer system. Of these buildings only Hangar #38 remains. It is a steel frame structure with stuccoed walls, originally consisting of two bays, side by side, each measuring 110 by160 feet with full-width lift doors on the northeast end. From 1935 to 1939, the Works Progress Administration built several additions. A two-story, flat-roofed west wing was built of steel and concrete, as was the boiler room, and extends halfway along the southern side of the hangar. On the eastern side is a similar wing, one-story high, with a slightly pitched roof on steel beams, which extends around to the southern side as well. Seaplane Hangar #38 is believed to be a unique design among early military aviation bases. A survey of seaplane hangars revealed that although several early hangars with varying degrees of alterations could be found along the Eastern Seaboard, a hangar located at Crissy Field, in San Francisco most closely resembled the Seaplane Hangar at Miller Army Airfield.
In 1923, one of the first of a series of tests made at Miller Field by private aircraft manufacturers was conducted on the Remington-Burnelli aircraft. Bellanca Aircraft Corporation utilized the hangars at Miller Field during the summer of 1928. In the spring of the following year, the American Aeronautical Corporation assembled and tested two Italian seaplanes, one SS-55 twin hulled Savoia-Marchetti flying boat and one S-62 Savoia-Marchetti flying boat. In 1926 a training session for eight Army Air Service pilots who were preparing for a good will Pan-American flight through North, Central and South America was held here. One of the planes to be used, a Looning Amphibian, was tested at the field. Popular aviation heroes also visited and used Miller Field. Famed Arctic pilot Floyd Bennett arrived at Miller Field in the spring of 1928 to prepare for an emergency flight to rescue downed fliers on Greenly Island, Canada. Bennett and his party left Miller Field on April 19. During the flight Bennett contracted pneumonia and died in a hospital in Quebec later that month.
The Elm Tree Light, a light station that operated throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, replaced a large elm tree at the foot of New Dorp Lane that served as a mark in the late 18th century for sailing vessels going from New York, Middletown and Brunswick. Although the light station was abandoned in 1924, the lighthouse remains on its site to the rear of the hangars. The Elm Tree Light is a significant part of the historic setting and reflects the 200-year long history of continued land use at its site.
In 1973, Miller Field was acquired by the National Park Service as part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. At that time, about 24 buildings and structures from the air field remained. All of the buildings were in deteriorated conditions at the time of the acquisition, especially the two hangars. The condition of the airplane hangar (Building 33) in particular had reached such a state of deterioration that renovation was no longer practical and the hangar was demolished. Other buildings were renovated to provide housing and today the Elm Tree Light and Hangar #38 best reflect the history of the airfield.
Miller Field is located on Staten Island, New York, and is part of the National Park Service's Gateway National Recreation Area, a 26,000-acre recreation area located in the heart of the New York metropolitan area. Access to Miller Field is from community streets (Hylan and Father Capodanno blvds. and connecting sts.). Miller Field is a heavily used recreational area throughout the year and provides half of the recreational field use available to Staten Islanders. The Staten Island Bicycling Association meets weekly at Miller Field to begin their cycling tours. The current bicycle path runs from South Beach to Midland Beach and plans call for bicycle connections from St. George at the Staten Island ferry terminal through Fort Wadsworth and Miller Field to Great Kills park and Tottenville at the south end of the island. There is no fee for admission. Call Miller Field/Staten Island at 718-351-6970 or visit the park's website.
Located in Manhattan, New York, the USS Intrepid, the third Essex class carrier built by the United States, was laid down at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company of Virginia and commissioned on August 16, 1943. As early as 1910, the U.S. Navy recognized the potential value that flight would have in naval operations. Although naval aviation was utilized during World War I, aircraft assigned to warships generally provided only reconnaissance support for the fleet. The possibility of using airplanes as a naval strike weapon did not begin until the 1920s when aircraft capable of performing heavy bombardment against land or sea targets were built. Naval vessels capable of carrying several squadrons of such aircraft were developed concurrently. Thus the first eight carriers constructed by the U.S. Navy varied in size, speed, protection and aircraft complement in order to provide the greatest number of carriers capable of launching the greatest number of air strikes, yet still comply with treaty-imposed tonnage restrictions. Essex (CV-9), the ninth U.S. carrier authorized, was a product of these earlier designs. A total of 26 Essex-class carriers were ordered by the U.S. Navy between February 1940 and June 1943 and 24 were completed. This was the largest class of carriers ever built by the United States and over half, including USS Intrepid (CV-11), served as part of the Pacific Fleet during World War II.
World War II and the carrier campaigns of the Pacific firmly established the role of aviation within naval operations and the aircraft carrier replaced the battleship as the Navy's primary strike weapon. Serving as mobile air bases, carriers could maneuver aircraft around the open waters and scattered island chains of the Pacific. By employing a combination of scouting, fighter or bomber aircraft to control the enemy's air power, groups of carriers, screened by surface ships, could open the way for island invasions, cover and support amphibious operations, and help to hold the conquered areas. Thus carriers became an integral compound of nearly every campaign throughout the Pacific War. With aircraft that extended the fleet's firepower beyond the range of large caliber battleship guns, the carrier's status was elevated from reconnaissance platform to that of major surface combatant.
In two years of fighting against the Japanese the USS Intrepid was hit by enemy action on five occasions and took part in the largest naval battle in history, the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944. The USS Intrepid helped sink both of Japan's super-battleships, Yamato and Musashi. Five battle stars were awarded to the USS Intrepid for its World War II service. The USS Intrepid was extensively modernized by the Navy in 1954, converting it to a modern attack carrier capable of handling jets. All heavy guns were removed, the centerline elevator was removed and a new heavy-duty starboard side elevator was installed. The USS Intrepid is now operated as a memorial and museum ship.
The USS Intrepid, a National Historic Landmark, can be viewed at the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in Manhattan, New York. In the spring and summer the museum is open from 10:00am to 5:00pm Monday-Friday; 10:00pm to 7:00pm Saturday and Sunday. During the fall and winter the museum is open from 10:00am to 5:00pm Tuesday-Sunday. Please call 212-245-0072, or visit the museum's website for further information.
Sources: U.S. government, public domain information from Aviation: From Sand Dunes to Sonic Booms - National Register of Historic Places