Queens Takes To Flight

By RICHARD FASANELLA

On a frigid December morning in 1909, a pair of innovative inventors launched mankind into the skies for 12 seconds, and just a decade later Queens was joining the race to fly, in days when what is now John F. Kennedy Airport was just a golf course and LaGuardia Airport was a beach-front amusement park.

Low-flying planes gliding over the Grand Central Parkway are a common sight for Queens commuters as they travel past LaGuardia Airport.

Numerous small airfields, like Holmes Field in Jackson Heights, peppered the borough following the Wright brothers’ accomplishments. Some of these Queens fields were home to other notable achievements, like the first transatlantic flight that was launched in 1919 from Rockaway Naval Air Station (later Jacob Riis Park).

If you are brave enough to venture into the tall marsh grass on the outskirts of College Point, where 23rd Avenue now dead-ends, you’ll discover the deserted hangars of Flushing Airport, which some of the locals still call "Speed’s Airport," after former owner "Speed" Havlik.

Opened in 1927, it rapidly became the busiest airport in the city. However, the completion of LaGuardia Airport in 1939 siphoned off a lot of commuter business, and in later years, as suburban sprawl encroached, accidents and near misses became inevitable.

The airport’s tiny runway was occasionally mistaken by 727 pilots for that of nearby La Guardia — which would give residents moments of alarm when planes would fly low overhead before tower control would redirect them. The crash of a light aircraft into a nearby house in the ’70s galvanized local residents, and although the airport was at that point used only by skywriting squadrons and the occasional Goodyear blimp, community pressure forced its closing in 1984.

Since then, water from the surrounding marsh has flooded the crumbling runways and decaying hangars. Even the roads leading to the airport have been abandoned, and the now inaccessible site has become the preserve of ducks and killifish.

Meanwhile, LaGuardia continued to thrive in spite of its meager beginnings. First occupied by Gala Amusement Park, the site was transformed in 1929 into a 105-acre private flying field. Bordering on Flushing Bay and Bowery Bay, it was first named Glenn H. Curtis Airport and later North Beach Airport. Taken over by New York City, it was enlarged by the purchase of adjoining land and by filling in 357 acres of waterfront along the east side.

Some local Queens residents fought to keep Flushing Airport open at protest rallies like the one above.

Ground was broken on September 9, 1937 for a new 680-acre airport, which was built jointly by the city and the Federal Works Progress Administration. It was dedicated on October 15, 1939 as New York City Municipal Airport.

On November 2, 1939, the name was changed to New York Municipal Airport — LaGuardia Field. On December 2 of that year, it was opened to commercial traffic.

When the airfield opened in 1939, it handled more than 250 flights a day in its first year of operation, giving New York City the heaviest air traffic in the United States.

The style of cars may have changed over the years, but the heavy volume of traffic continues to plague commuters at LaGuardia Airport.

In 1947, the year the airport was leased to the Port Authority, it was renamed LaGuardia Airport. A new Central Terminal Building was opened in 1964 and enlarged in 1967 and 1992.

The position of the city as an innovator in regional airport planning and as the dominant force in intercontinental air travel was strengthened by the opening in 1948 of Idlewild International Airport.

Construction began in April 1942, when the City of New York contracted for the placing of hydraulic fill over the marshy tidelands on the site of Idlewild Golf Course. Planned at first for 1,000 acres, the airport grew to five times that size.

The first commercial flights began on July 1, 1948. The airport was formally dedicated as New York International Airport on July 31, 1948. It was rededicated on December 24, 1963, as John F. Kennedy International Airport, following action of the Mayor and Council of the City of New York and a resolution of the Commissioners of the Port Authority.

Plans for another large airport in the region floundered in the 1960s, but Queens retained a central role in several new developments in aviation, including the establishment of the first modern air shuttle (by Eastern Airlines in 1961 to Boston and Washington) and the introduction of the Boeing 747 (by Pan American).

Currently, there are over 48,000 people employed at JFK and LaGuardia airports. The two facilities contribute a combined $26.1 billion in economic activity to the NY/NJ metropolitan region generating some 270,000 jobs.

The Port Authority also has large redevelopment programs in place to expand and modernize many of the facilities at both airports including the building of new terminals, reconfiguring and widening of roadways and special projects like the AirTrain — the controversial $1.5 billion light rail system connecting JFK to area mass transit.

The expansion projects have also raised the ire of various community groups concerned about the risks increased air traffic poses to the surrounding environment. The steady drone of airplanes over homes and schools continues to be a plight on the inhabitants of Queens, as well.

While local politicians continue to work with aviation officials to address these quality of life concerns, Queens residents continue to pause, mid-conversation, and let the plane pass overhead as the revolution of aviation has yet to reach the level of peace and quiet that fell over Kitty Hawk before the brothers took flight.