In 1929, Gala Amusement Park was transformed into a 105-acre private flying field called Glenn H. Curtiss Airport.

That was only one of the many transformations the piece of land, which borders on Flushing Bay and Bowery Bay, would undergo.

It was taken over by New York City and throughout the years would have various names. In 1947, the airport – now called LaGuardia – was leased to the Port Authority. Today, LaGuardia Airport consists of 680 acres and 72 aircraft gates.

Eagle Electric is the nest to 1,300 workers.

Construction on John F. Kennedy International Airport 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. The area, located in the southeastern section on Jamaica Bay, was originally planned for 1,000 acres, but grew to its current 4,930 acres, including 880 acres in the Central Terminal area.

The two airports contribute billions of dollars in economic activity, and are the largest employers in Queens County. There are more than 37,000 people employed at JFK and more than 9,000 employed at LaGuardia.

Throughout the NY/NJ metropolitan area region, the airports generate a combined 270,700 direct, indirect or induced jobs.

Hospitals also account for a large number of jobs in Queens County.

Long Island Jewish Medical Center, located on Lakeville Road in New Hyde Park– along the Queens/Nassau border – employs 6,000 people, according to spokeswoman Robin Frank. Recently, the North Shore Health System and LIJ announced plans for a merger, creating the largest not-for-profit health care system on the Eastern Seaboard. The merged entity would employ 27,000 people.

Power to the people, Con Ed supports 2,750 at the current moment.

Other hospitals include: Jamaica Hospital Medical Center with 2,500 employees; the Catholic Medical Center of Brooklyn and Queens, which operates St. John’s Queens Hospital in Elmhurst, Mary Immaculate in Queens and St. Mary’s in Brooklyn with 6,000 employees; New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens with 2,700 employees; and St. Mary’s Hospital for Children with 400 employees.

Doctors, nurses, physical therapists, nutritionists, lab technicians, paramedics, EMT’s, housekeepers, electrical engineers, cafeteria employees, podiatrists, allergy specialists, psychologists and social workers are just a few of the many, many jobs found at the hospitals.

Another high-volume Queens employer is Lefrak City, located in Rego Park/Corona, which is estimated to employ 5,000 people, according to Susan Weiss, corporate relations associate.

The Lefrak Organization, founded in 1905 by Harry Lefrak, is recognized as one the world’s leading building firms. The organization has created tens of thousands of apartments in hundreds of buildings, millions of square feet of commercial and office space and billions of dollars in property values.

Weiss described Lefrak City as "its own little town." Built in the 1960s with approximately 5,000 apartments, residents have on-site facilities for shopping, entertainment and leisure.

Jobs range from maintenance of the building to the dry cleaners to the librarians.

Bell Atlantic trucks seem to be appearing more and more throughout Queens, and since their merger with NYNEX in mid-August, the company has made a commitment to focus on customers, growth and innovation.

"Now that the merger is official, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and begin delivering the benefits to our customers and our investors," said Ivan Seidenberg, the former NYNEX chairman who is now vice chairman, president and chief operating officer for Bell Atlantic. "We will be a leader in the global marketplace and we will remain firmly committed to the people in the communities we have always served," he said after the merger.

Bell Atlantic now covers everywhere from Maine to Virginia with local phone service.

Here in Queens, Bell Atlantic has 14 garages, 1,400 vehicles and employs 3,800 people. There are 1.1 million access lines and 17 central offices, each housing a huge computer responsible for the switching needed for the telephone network. Put simply, the computers switch where one individual is to the other.

Job duties include operators, business office representatives, engineers and technicians.

Kennedy Airport flies high, employing 37,000 people.

There are three types of technicians, explained John Bonomo, spokesperson for Bell Atlantic: an installation and repair technician (the men and women who come into your home or climb the telephone poles); a construction technician (who may not be dealing with you directly, but the work done affects you); and a central office technician (someone who goes around to the central offices and ensures those huge computers are working properly). There are also public communications technicians who are responsible for fixing public phones.

If it isn’t a Bell Atlantic truck you see roaming Queens, then it’s probably a Con Edison truck. Con Ed employs 2,750 people in Queens who work out of various locations and departments, such as fossil power plants, substations, storage and vehicle maintenance facilities, customer service centers, training facilities and other administrative offices.

Con Ed has been serving New York City since 1823 when the New York Gas Light Company, Con Ed’s first corporate predecessor, was established.

Some job duties entail: meter readers (who read up to 1,000 meters a day and looks for any unsafe or irregular meter conditions); line constructors (who install and splice overhead cables and transformers); troubleshooters (who respond to all emergencies on the electric system, such as if a customer has no light).

Queens is also the home of two Home Depot stores, and it looks like a third one is on the way in the near future. The Home Depot, which was founded in 1978 in Atlanta, Georgia, is North America’s largest home center retailer, currently operating 553 warehouse-style home centers in 40 states.

With stores in Flushing and South Ozone Park, the Home Depot employs approximately 900 people in Queens, according to spokeswoman Katrina Blauvelt. Overall, the company employs approximately 122,000.

The stores cater to do-it-yourselfers, as well as home improvement, construction and building maintenance professionals. Stores have a design center staffed by professional designers who offer free in-store consultation for home improvement projects, ranging from lighting to computer-assisted design for kitchens and bathrooms.

In Long Island City, factories and manufacturing companies line the streets. One such company is Eagle Electric. Founded in 1920 by Louis Ludwig, founding chairman, the company employs more than 1,300 people. The slogan and creed that have remained with Eagle since it was founded is "Perfection is not an accident."

The company moved from Manhattan to Long Island City in 1941 and has more than 900,000 square feet of floor space dedicated to manufacturing and warehousing here in Queens.

The company had recently been considering a move to North Carolina, but decided to stay here in Queens. Workers have now been given a new six-year contract, which guarantees jobs for people and increases the company’s ability to serve customers, according to Eagle Electric President Warren Cohen.

Eagle Electric has been a technological and market leader in wiring devices since 1920. Its global distribution channels include electrical distributors, independent and co-op hardware distributors, home centers, mass merchants and original equipment manufacturers.

Another company located in Long Island City is National Envelope Corporation., founded in 1952 by William Ungar, the company’s current president and CEO.

Ten years later, it moved from Mott Street on the lower East Side of Manhattan to Hunterspoint Avenue in L.I.C.

When he first began the company, Ungar started with five employees and 1,600 square feet. Today, his Long Island City facility alone employs up to 400 people and occupies approximately 235,000 square feet.

Queens Surface Bus Company, which will soon be celebrating its 60th anniversary, is another big Queens employer, with 750 workers. More than 60 percent of them are Queens residents. The company employs 430 bus drivers; 205 mechanics, fuelers and cleaners; and the remaining number of employees include clerks, foremen, dispatchers and managers.

According to Peter Greenberg, administrative vice president for Queens Surface, it is the largest private bus company in New York City and carries about 90,000 people a day. The original company was founded by the Salzberg family in 1937 and has been owned by Robert and Myra Burke since 1988.

Representative of Queens’ large financial sector, Citibank employs 3,500 in the borough – most of whom are located in Long Island City’s Citicorp Tower. The building is the tallest building outside Manhattan from Boston to Atlanta.