Is that an outdoor, open-to-the-pubic viewing station for watching planes take off? Air travel sure has changed.
When it opened in 1929, La Guardia was a private airfield off Flushing Bay called Glenn H. Curtiss Airport (a well-known aviator of the era) and then North Beach Airport.
Outraged that the only commercial airport that flew to New York City at the time was actually in Newark, Mayor La Guardia turned little North Beach airport into New York Municipal Airport a decade later. The La Guardia name didn’t officially arrive until 1947.
Tags: airports of New York City, Flushing Bay, Glenn H. Curtiss, La Guardia airport, North Beach Airport
September 24, 2009 at 2:36 pm |
Cool Pics
December 2, 2009 at 6:09 pm |
Can you tell me when North Beach Airport officially became LaGuardia Field? Thank you.
March 26, 2010 at 7:56 pm |
I’m an archivist and worked on the papers for the New York World’s Fair 1939-1940, held at NYPL. There was information in the records about LaGuardia pushing it to become a public airport to accommodate fair traffic. Letters from Robert Moses also suggested that the Fair was also the impetus for the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, though only a small portion was completed at that time.