Fly With Floyd

Floyd Bennett Field was New York City’s first municipal airport.

Despite mayor Fiorello LaGuardia’s best efforts, it never caught on with commercial airlines or package delivery companies (who preferred Newark airport) and was thus doomed to failure.

It was however popular with daredevil fliers and the U.S. military.

These days Floyd Bennett Field is popular with model airplane pilots, bikers and hikers. We tried to hike, but were thwarted by the most aggressive mosquitoes I’ve seen outside of the state of Maine.

It’s also popular with birds, cricketeers, astronomers and gardeners.

The Intrepid’s Concorde is living here (some might say, not so happily) while the aircraft carrier is rehabbed. There is no connection between Floyd Bennett Field and the supersonic jet.

Floyd Bennett was eventually superceded by LaGuardia and, eventually JFK. Every few minutes you spend at Floyd Bennett will be interrupted by the sound of the engines of planes coming in for a landing at JFK. It’s fun to try and figure out the carrier painted on each planes’ tail.

We thought Floyd Bennett would be a great place to tape a U.S. version of the best show on television, but apparently the birds don’t think so. Oh well.

~ by ann on August 12, 2008.