Military

Landing at Floyd Bennett Field, New York’s First Airport

A dilapidated airplane hangar at Floyd Bennett Field.

Mrs. Bennett wept as the memorial tablet was unveiled, damping the freshly broken ground of New York City’s first municipal airport. For all time, Floyd Bennett Field would honor the legacy of her departed son, the Brooklyn native and national hero who’d won the Medal of Honor by breaking barriers as the first to fly over the North Pole.

Floyd may have made his mother proud that day, but historians have since determined that the feat was a fraud.  Perhaps he sold his soul for a ticker tape parade—the remaining two years of his life were fraught with failure, culminating in a dramatic end.  Bennett perished while attempting to save a shipwrecked crew on a deserted island.  Two months later, a deserted island was named for him. Perhaps it, too, was doomed to fail.

It was an unlikely upgrade for Barren Island, a plot of marshland in Southeast Brooklyn that had spent half a century as the final destination for New York City’s garbage.  An hour’s drive from City Hall, with no access to major highways or train routes, the location was heavily criticized by the growing aviation community, but financial concerns ultimately outweighed their objections.  Barren Island had one major advantage over the other proposed sites—the city already owned it.

Hangars on the south side of the property are a fine example of early aviation architecture, despite their state of disrepair.

Dredgers began pumping thousands of tons of sand from the depths of the Jamaica Bay to fill and level 500 acres.  Completed at a price of $4.5 million, Floyd Bennett Field was dedicated in 1931 with a spectacular air show, drawing crowds of 25,000. By all accounts, the airport was a fine one, with eight hangars capable of accommodating fifty planes, a state-of-the-art lighting system, and innovative accommodations for amphibious aircraft.

As the fanfares subsided, the airfield struggled to compete with New Jersey’s Newark airport, which dominated passenger flights into the New York City area.  At the time, carriers depended on airmail contracts with the US Post Office to ensure profits on underbooked flights, and the Postal Service never agreed to transfer its operations from Newark to Floyd Bennett Field.   Ultimately, the new airport could only attract a single commercial airline to its runways; American Airlines landed its first passenger flight in 1937.  As predicted, travelers complained of the long transit times into the city.

Despite its failings in the realm of commercial flight, Floyd Bennett Field was the site of dozens of notable achievements during the golden age of aviation. In 1933, Wiley Post made the first solo trip around the world, a record that was broken years later by Howard Hughes on the same spot. “Wrong Way” Corrigan made a memorable trip across the Atlantic in 1938, claiming he had accidentally gone the wrong direction after he was unable to get approval for the flight.

With the Second World War raging overseas, the Navy purchased the underused airstrip from the city in 1941. During the war, Naval Air Station – New York was the busiest installation of its kind in the United States. Aircraft Delivery Units positioned at Floyd Bennett Field were responsible for the commission, testing, and delivery of aircraft to combat zones throughout Europe and the Pacific.  The field was reorganized in 1946 as a Naval Air Reserve Training Station.  As the military scaled back operations in the 1970s, most of the airfield’s military functions were phased out, and the vast majority of the property was abandoned.

Dilapidated artifacts in an old Navy barracks.

Three conflicting plans emerged from the local, state, and federal governments on how to repurpose the newly available land, but the winning bid came from the Nixon administration, which proposed including the site in the nation’s first attempt at an urban National Park. The Gateway National Recreation Area included 1,300 acres of waterfront parkland scattered through broad areas of the Rockaways, South Brooklyn, Staten Island, and New Jersey, largely composed of defunct military posts.  At the time, critics accused the Gateway proponents of creating a “vast wasteland.”  To some extent, these words proved prophetic. The Gateway area is currently the largest contiguous open space in New York City, but relatively few New Yorkers have ever heard of it.

As of 1991, daily visitors to Floyd Bennett Field averaged around 30, and even today, the Gateway remains largely unknown. During the Reagan years, the area was allowed to languish when the Parks Service was set back by a series of budget cuts. A 2003 bid to connect the areas with ferry links and rebrand the Gateway as the “National Parks of New York Harbor” failed to raise the private funds necessary to overhaul the parks.  Meanwhile many of the area’s military structures—there’s over 400 scattered throughout the Gateway—have fallen into a state of disrepair.

This former repair shop has been completely neglected.

For a place where relatively little happens, Floyd Bennett Field seems to be in a perpetual state of emergency—police cars and rescue vehicles are a constant presence, and choppers often loom overhead. The NYPD operates its helicopter division and runs Emergency Service training here. Pockets of civilian activity are scattered throughout the park, including Brooklyn’s largest community garden. In Hangar B, a group of enthusiastic craftsmen are preserving the airfield’s history by restoring and displaying historic aircraft. On summer nights, the park is a meeting place for amateur astronomers, offering some of the darkest skies in the five boroughs. Notably, it’s the only legal campground within city limits.

The recent restoration of the Administration Building, now a visitor’s center, is a significant sign of progress.  Several buildings have been cleared out and renovated, but there’s still much work to be done.  Recently, a $38 million sports and entertainment center salvaged four of the historic hangars, combining them into a single structure.  Beyond the packed parking lot of the Aviator Sports complex, the crowds drop off quickly, leading to a sea of grass and vast stretches of empty pavement.

The sparsely populated acreage of Floyd Bennett Field can feel deserted at times, but you’re more likely to strike up a conversation here than the teeming walkways of Central Park; visitors invariably have something in common. They’re birdwatchers, dog walkers, cook-out captains, and retirees who all share a love of the outdoors and an appreciation for quiet places.  Most importantly, they all know about this place, and cherish the secret.  Floyd Bennett Field is due for a rebirth, and it’s just waiting to be discovered. Until then, let’s enjoy the silence…

These hangars have been cleared out somewhat recently.

The renovated administration building looking lonely on a foggy morning.

Feral cats roam the old airport, choosing the most remote places to die.

A desiccated feline makes a tomb of a former officer’s quarters, where piles of animal waste collect in the bathtub and cover the stairs.

These rooms are only touched with the first signs of decay, but the windows are already shuttered with ivy.

The later buildings typify the blandly pragmatic architecture of military installations of this period, but inside, the right angles break down.

Odd lighting in a projection booth overlooking a gymnatorium.

This building on the southwest edge of the park was last used by the park police.

I almost missed this incredible camera obscura…

An undistorted view of the projected image.

-Will Ellis

For more abandoned military installations, check out Fort Totten:

Click through for more of New York’s military past.

Inside Fort Totten Part 2: The Army Hospital

A tin ceiling crumbles in an Army Hospital dayroom.

Constructed in 1906, the Fort Totten Army Hospital has been vacant since the area was decommissioned as a military base in the mid 70s.  Today, this once thriving infirmary with a 68-bed capacity exhibits a harrowing level of decay.  Beneath an attractive Colonial Revival facade, hospital rooms self-destruct in slow motion.

Originally known as the Post Hospital, and later named after Dr. Walter Reed, the medical center is situated on a scenic bank of the Long Island Sound on the southeast portion of Willet’s Point, in an area currently under the jurisdiction of the NYC Fire Department.  A newly renovated training facility, which once served the military as a barracks and mess hall, sits directly behind the hospital, a prime example of the potential for adaptive reuse of the installation’s vast collection of dilapidated buildings.

Most are in a state of limbo, awaiting a white knight to cough up the millions necessary to preserve and repurpose the structures, but unfortunately, Walter Reed Hospital is long past the point of no return.

Inside, a nearly complete lack of artifacts disappoints, but allows the structural degeneration to take center stage.  Watch your step—some doorways give way to a two-story chasm, filled with jagged debris and splintered beams.  Buckling walls, bulging floors, and collapsed light fixtures mingle in the wretched sea-foam green interior.  Its a preservationist’s worst nightmare, but it only scratches the surface of Fort Totten’s decay.

With a third of the property somewhat maintained by the Parks Department, the grounds are currently open to the public.  It’s worth the trip to see this moribund military base while most of its history remains (precariously) intact.  With some of the last remaining open spaces in Queens, this little known park makes a perfect picnic spot, but I wouldn’t sit too close to its ill-fated infirmary—Fort Totten Army Hospital is falling down. 

(For more on the past, present, and future of Fort Totten, see Part 1.)

-Will Ellis

Related Links:

• Fort Totten Historic District Designation Report
• Fort Totten History from the Bayside Historical Society 
• NYTimes 1999 “Fort Totten’s Old Houses are Tottering”
• NYTimes 2003 “Nearer to a Fort Totten Park but Not to a Consensus”
• Scouting NY—A Snowy Day at Fort Totten

“Demolition by Neglect”

This 1926 kitchen annex was the hospital’s latest addition, but it’s one of the first areas to collapse.

A devastated room on the first floor.

Tread carefully.

Vines take root in a first floor bathroom.

Dangling fluorescent fixtures in Room 27.

A perilous corridor, with the basement visible through a hole in the floor.

One level down, the entrance to a supply room.

Even this small utility room was done in sea-foam green.

A chair left in the basement was one of the only remaining pieces of furniture.

A rag sways in the breeze from a basement window.

The attic, distinguished by angled ceilings and dormer windows.

Rotting walls on the fourth floor.

Someone wasn’t happy with their room number.

For more Queens abandonments, check out:

• Houdini’s Grave, in NYC’s Spookiest Cemetery

• Inside Creedmoor State Hospital’s Building 25

• The Rockaway Beach Branch, Queens’ Forgotten Railroad

  

  Click through for Part 1 of this post.

Inside Fort Totten: Part 1

An abandoned battery at Fort Totten

Fort Totten sits on a far-flung peninsula of the Long Island Sound, forming the Northeast corner of Queens.  The grounds of this defunct military installation turned underfunded public park are home to over 100 historic buildings representing a series of changes that have taken place over the area’s quiet 200 year history.  Unfortunately, the majority of these stuctures have been disused for decades, and many are in a state of progressive collapse.  With so much of Fort Totten closed off with caution tape, overtaken with vines, or hidden beneath rusty fences, it makes for an unconventional park, but a fascinating place to wander.

An 1829 farmhouse predating the land’s military use crumbles behind a weedy barricade; out front, a prominent sign bears the inscription: “Please Excuse My Appearance, I am a Candidate for Historical Preservation.”  It’s an image that typifies the current state of affairs in the Fort Totten Historic District.

On the northern tip of Willet’s Point, a monumental granite fortification constructed during the Civil War as a key component of the defense of the New York Harbor sits unoccupied, though it’s used as a haunted house on occasion.  Clustered on the rest of the grounds, dozens of dilapidated Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne Style officers’ quarters, hospitals, bakeries, movie theatres, and laboratories vie for restoration, but so far the funding has failed to materialize.

The Willet Farmhouse, Fort Totten’s oldest structure, and one of the most at risk.

One such building, a two-story YMCA facility built in 1926, has been abandoned for close to 20 years, but much of what’s left behind lies undisturbed.  On a bulletin board in an upstairs landing, a 1995 thank-you letter from a kindergarten class at PS 201 hangs by a crude depiction of Santa Claus, both lovingly dedicated to an Officer Rivera.  Steps away, in a rotting book room, an incongruous stash of 80s porno magazines.

Most recently used as a community relations unit of the New York City Police Department, the building is cluttered with mattresses, discarded packaging, and unopened toy donations.  The New York City Fire Department, which now operates training facilities in a renovation abutting the hospital building, currently uses the attached gymnasium as a storage space.  The basement was filled with rusted-through shelving and ruined equipment, flooded and too dark to shoot.

An overgrown pit in a World War I battery.

On the other side of the peninsula, a series of concrete batteries sit half-submerged in plant life.  These were constructed at the turn of the century, but by 1938, they were declared obsolete and subsequently abandoned.  The boxy design looks like modern architecture to me, but the battery reveals its true age in other ways.

Pencil-thin stalactites ornament the ceiling wherever the rain gets in, suspended over a crank-operated machine designed to lift heavy weaponry a century ago.  The network of maze-like tunnels feature arched hallways with metal doors, winding staircases, and yawning pits, all fit for a dungeon.  Guards stationed at the fort were laid off in 2009, and it was unclear on my visit if the area was open to the public or not.  A rusty barrier, more hole than fence, didn’t keep out a couple of high school kids, but offered a spot for them to park their bikes.

When the military base changed hands in 2005 and became an official New York City Park, Bloomberg predicted that Fort Totten was ”certain to become one of New York’s most popular parks.”  Some community members feared that the estimated 450,000 yearly visitors would disrupt parking, increase crime, and change the face of the neighborhood, but ten years later, tourism has yet to pose a problem.

Fort Totten hasn’t lived up to its potential just yet, but the progress that has been made gives hope for improvements to come.  The park now offers regular events and educational programs to draw visitors and enrich the surrounding community.  Several nonprofit groups have occupied and renovated the decrepit buildings, including the landmarked Officers’ Club, which now serves the Bayside Historical Society as an educational facility and exhibition and event space.  These are small but significant victories in the effort to save the historic legacy of a little-known plot that could be the crown jewel of Queens parkland.

(Though in some cases, it may be too little, too late.  One look inside the profoundly decayed Fort Totten Army Hospital, in Part 2 of this post, will assure you of that.)

-Will Ellis

Related Links:

• Fort Totten Historic District Designation Report
• Fort Totten History from the Bayside Historical Society 
• NYTimes 1999 “Fort Totten’s Old Houses are Tottering”
• NYTimes 2003 “Nearer to a Fort Totten Park but Not to a Consensus”
• Scouting NY—A Snowy Day at Fort Totten

This obscure Queens park doubles as a ghost town.

The YMCA building partially obscured by monstrous vegetation. On the left, a new renovation.

Inside, a rusty scale abandoned in the lobby.

An emptied snack bar once served concessions at sporting events and amateur theatre.

A community kitchenette still held pots, pans, and complete place settings.

A bulletin board on the second floor that hadn’t been updated in 17 years.

This room must have provided temporary housing to minors.  The floor was littered with clothing and old English projects.

In the opposite corner, a derelict dollhouse. If I had been in the Twilight Zone, I’d have found a miniature me in there.

The remains of a rotting book room, which also housed a store of nudie magazines.

Through the library, a crumbling projection room overlooking the YMCA gymnatorium.

Daylight spills onto the practical planes of an underground battery.

Other areas had vaulted ceilings and arched double doors.

The interiors were almost completely empty, except for a dusting of dirt and leaf litter.

Some rooms held a few remnants…

Like this one: 100-year-old machinery in a dark Fort Totten nook.

Queens is quickly becoming my favorite borough.  Check out:

• Houdini’s Grave, in NYC’s Spookiest Cemetery

• Inside Creedmoor State Hospital’s Building 25

• The Rockaway Beach Branch, Queens’ Forgotten Railroad

Click through for Part Two: The Fort Totten Army Hospital