Floyd Bennett Field

Floyd Bennett Airport, Brooklyn, 1937, v1973.5.175; Brooklyn photograph and illustration collection, ARC.202; Brooklyn Historical Society.

Today being the last day of July, I am pondering the brevity of summer.  Though the extreme heat waves we experience make minutes seem like days, I still feel that the summer is just flying by.  Since moving to South Brooklyn, I habitually and addictively ride my bicycle to the Rockaway Beaches in Queens via a zigzaggy route that delivers me safely to the part of Flatbush Avenue south of the Belt Parkway that hosts a protected bike and pedestrian greenway.  Along this route is the very large piece of land that has been home to Floyd Bennett Field since 1931.  As a cyclist, I consider this the desert between Sheepshead Bay and the smoothie truck on the other side of the Marine Parkway Bridge -- where there is no water to be found and trees seem a rarity.

However, this airfield is rich with history and activity.  It was New York City’s first municipal airport where advances in air travel were celebrated and from which famous flights launched.  According to the National Parks Service, 26 around-the-world flights started or ended at Floyd Bennett Field between 1931 and 1939. In 1941, New York City sold the airfield to the United State Navy, and over the course of World War II it served as the most active naval air station in the country.  It is now on the National Register of Historic Places and maintained by the National Park Service.  Volunteers in Hangar B are dedicated to repairing and preserving historic planes and offer on-board tours of many planes.  I’ve heard you can also camp on the grounds and last year it hosted a concert or two.  The buildings are quite large as their original purpose was to house planes for various purposes and the collection of them makes for an awesome stroll or bike ride.

For more information on the airfield’s activities, check out the New York Harbor Parks website; for historical information, National Parks Service has the details. And if you haven’t made your way out there, do so before it becomes a wintry tundra in a few short months.

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