Floyd Bennett Field

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National Park Service outline map of Floyd Bennett Field

Floyd Bennett Field was New York City's first urban airport and is now part of the Gateway National Recreation Area , administered by the National Park Service . Floyd Bennett Field is named after the American aviation pioneer Floyd Bennett , who flew to the North Pole with Richard Byrd in 1926 .

location

Aerial view of Floyd Bennet Field

Floyd Bennett Field is located at the southern end of Flatbush Avenue on Jamaica Bay in the south of the New York borough of Brooklyn and was created by the embankment of the salt marsh between Barren Island and Brooklyn, which was originally off Brooklyn. The area is bounded to the north by Belt Parkway, to the east and south by Jamaica Bay and the Jamaica Bay Channel, which connects Jamaica Bay with Lower New York Bay , and to the west by Flatbush Avenue. The entire area has a size of about 5.2 square kilometers.

history

Starting position

With the rise of commercial aviation in the United States during the 1920s, facilitated by the fact that the US Postal Service subsidized air travel with the delivery of airmail to private airlines in 1927, the need for airfields near major American metropolitan areas increased. While airfields were being built in many cities, New York initially fell asleep. The then trade minister (and later US president ), Herbert Hoover , expressed concern about the lack of an adequate airfield in New York and sent a 23-member committee of experts to New York with the task of finding suitable locations for an airport in New York. This committee submitted a report on November 29, 1927 with six possible locations in New York City, including what would become Floyd Bennett Field.

On the initiative of the aviation pioneer Clarence D. Chamberlain , who had flown the Atlantic immediately after Charles Lindbergh and who acted as advisor to the city of New York on the choice of an airport, Floyd Bennett Field was finally selected. The reasons for this were that the weather conditions seemed relatively favorable here, the area was away from buildings and other obstacles and the Jamaica Bay offered landing opportunities for the seaplanes , which were popular at the time . The area was also municipal owned and excavation for the Jamaica Bay Channel could be backfilled on site.

On behalf of the New York City Department of Docks , the filling work began in 1928 and was largely completed by 1929. Once this was completed, the construction of two runways and the aircraft hangars began. Limited flight operations began on June 26, 1930; the official inauguration took place on May 23, 1931.

Aviation records and commercial decline in the 1930s

Focke-Wulf Fw 200 B "Condor" of Lufthansa (model)

In commercial terms, however, Floyd Bennett Field was subsequently unable to prevail against Newark Airport in neighboring New Jersey , which opened in 1928 and which had already established itself as an airmail hub and passenger airport and had excellent transport links to Manhattan through the Pulaski Skyway and Holland Tunnel . Because of the high subsidies from the airmail business, then New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia tried to force Floyd Bennett Field as the new hub for airmail in the New York metropolitan area instead of Newark, but in 1936 the Postal Service refused on the grounds that Newark would be cheaper to do so operate and is conveniently located in terms of traffic.

Despite or because of its lack of commercial success, Floyd Bennett Field was the starting point for many aviation records in the 1930s. The land-based long-haul passenger aircraft Fw 200 V1 "Condor" D-ACON of Lufthansa landed there on August 10, 1938 , after being the first non-stop passenger aircraft to successfully complete the 6,371 kilometer non-stop route from Berlin-Staaken airport in 24 hours, 56 minutes and 12 seconds had completed. The return flight to Berlin-Tempelhof (19 hours and 55 minutes) was also recognized by the FAI as a flight path record, category 2 (record with crew).

Takeover by the US Navy

Floyd Bennett Field in the 1940s

Due to the lack of profitability, which became even more noticeable with the opening of the later LaGuardia Airport in 1939, the city of New York was open to plans by the US Navy to take over the airport. The Navy had operated hangars there since 1931, and activities were gradually expanded during the 1930s. The city and Navy eventually agreed to sell it, and commercial air travel ceased on May 26, 1941. A week later, on June 2, 1941, the New York Naval Air Station, Floyd Bennett Field , began operations, although official sales did not go through until early 1942.

The Navy expanded the airport area from 1.57 km² to 5.2 km², expanded the runways and built new barracks and hangars. During the Second World War , Floyd Bennett Field was used for pilot training and as a base for anti-submarine combat in the North Atlantic. In addition, much of the air freight and passenger traffic for the US armed forces in the European theater of war was handled through Floyd Bennett Field, which became the busiest airport in the US during the World War.

After the Second World War

After the end of World War II, Floyd Bennett Field was demoted to a base in the Naval Aviation Reserve in July 1946. For a short time in 1947, the city of New York even made efforts to use the airfield again for civil aviation because LaGuardia Airport, which was also largely built on heaped land, had to be repaired, and the new Idlewild Airport - the later one JFK Airport - was not yet fully developed. However, these plans came to nothing, and with the outbreak of the Korean and Vietnam War , the military use increased sharply, especially as a training airport for naval aviation.

After the end of the Vietnam War, air traffic fell sharply and the Navy wanted to close its base. In the late 1960s, New York State contemplated building apartments for up to 180,000 people on the airport grounds. These plans were then abandoned due to opposition from the City of New York and environmentalists who wanted to use the area as a park. The US Navy finally gave up the base in mid-1971, and only the Coast Guard , which had had a base on the site since 1936, still used part of the airport. Most of Floyd Bennett Field was added to the new park with the creation of the Gateway National Recreation Area in 1972. On April 11, 1980, the airport was entered as a Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ REG Davis: A History of the World's Airlines, Oxford et al. 1964, pp. 39-55.
  2. ↑ Porter R. Blakemore, Dana C. Linck: Historic Structures Report, Historical Data Section, Archeological Data Section Floyd Bennett Field, Gateway National Recreation Area, Vol. 1 (PDF; 20.8 MB), Denver, CO 1981, p. 4th
  3. ↑ Porter R. Blakemore, Dana C. Linck: Historic Structures Report, Historical Data Section, Archeological Data Section Floyd Bennett Field, Gateway National Recreation Area, Vol. 1 (PDF; 20.8 MB), Denver, CO 1981, p. 9 f.
  4. ↑ Porter R. Blakemore, Dana C. Linck: Historic Structures Report, Historical Data Section, Archeological Data Section Floyd Bennett Field, Gateway National Recreation Area, Vol. 1 (PDF; 20.8 MB), Denver, CO 1981, p. 29 f.
  5. ↑ Porter R. Blakemore, Dana C. Linck: Historic Structures Report, Historical Data Section, Archeological Data Section Floyd Bennett Field, Gateway National Recreation Area, Vol. 1 (PDF; 20.8 MB), Denver, CO 1981, p. 34.
  6. ↑ Porter R. Blakemore, Dana C. Linck: Historic Structures Report, Historical Data Section, Archeological Data Section Floyd Bennett Field, Gateway National Recreation Area, Vol. 1 (PDF; 20.8 MB), Denver, CO 1981, p. 44.
  7. ↑ Porter R. Blakemore, Dana C. Linck: Historic Structures Report, Historical Data Section, Archeological Data Section Floyd Bennett Field, Gateway National Recreation Area, Vol. 1 (PDF; 20.8 MB), Denver, CO 1981, p. 47-52.
  8. ^ "Condor" record flights Berlin - New York - Berlin, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Cologne, company archive
  9. ↑ Porter R. Blakemore, Dana C. Linck: Historic Structures Report, Historical Data Section, Archeological Data Section Floyd Bennett Field, Gateway National Recreation Area, Vol. 1 (PDF; 20.8 MB), Denver, CO 1981, p. 52-60.
  10. ↑ Porter R. Blakemore, Dana C. Linck: Historic Structures Report, Historical Data Section, Archeological Data Section Floyd Bennett Field, Gateway National Recreation Area, Vol. 1 (PDF; 20.8 MB), Denver, CO 1981, p. 60-71.
  11. ↑ Porter R. Blakemore, Dana C. Linck: Historic Structures Report, Historical Data Section, Archeological Data Section Floyd Bennett Field, Gateway National Recreation Area, Vol. 1 (PDF; 20.8 MB), Denver, CO 1981, p. 71 ff.
  12. ^ Floyd Bennett Field Historic District on the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed August 19, 2019.

Coordinates: 40 ° 35 ′ 28 "  N , 73 ° 53 ′ 28"  W.