Holmes Airport (occasionally known as Grand Central Air Terminal and Grand Central Airport
. ''www.airfields-freeman.com''. Retrieved June 12, 2017.) was an airport in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

that operated from 1929 to 1940. Real estate developer E. H. Holmes built the airport on approximately of undeveloped land. He organized and sold stock in Holmes Airport, Inc., but claimed that some wanted to see him fail. In February, 1929, Clarence D. Chamberlin, the aviator

Viola Gentry Viola Gentry (1894 - 1988) was an American aviator, best known for setting the Elinor Smith#Endurance records, first non-refueling endurance record for women. Early life Gentry was born in Gentry, Rockingham County, North Carolina. She learned to ...

, and Dorothy Stone, actress and daughter of

Fred Stone Fred Andrew Stone (August 19, 1873 – March 6, 1959) was an American actor. Stone began his career as a performer in circuses and minstrel shows, went on to act in vaudeville, and became a star on Broadway and in feature films, which earned h ...

, broke ground for the new airport. According to a contemporary street map, it extended as far as 79th Street to the east, 68th Street and St. Michael's Cemetery to the west, Astoria Boulevard to the north, and 31st Avenue to the south. The airport had two hangars, an office, and two gravel runways, of and in length, respectively. The new airport opened on Saturday, March 16, 1929, attracting 100,000 visitors on its second day of operation. Later that year, the first scheduled flights from New York City began when Eastern Air Express started a two-day service to

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

from Holmes. In April 1930, thousands of people paid $1 each () for a ride in an airplane. It was promoted as an experiment to ascertain whether it was fear or the expense that kept the public from flying. On Sunday, November 11, 1934, sixty-four airplanes took part in a novelty race involving a treasure hunt and pie-eating contest, the winner returning in 28 minutes.

Blimp A blimp, or non-rigid airship, is an airship (dirigible) without an internal structural framework or a keel. Unlike semi-rigid and rigid airships (e.g. Zeppelins), blimps rely on the pressure of the lifting gas (usually helium, rather than hy ...

s also used the airport. Goodyear erected a hangar in 1931 and conducted sightseeing flights. In 1936, a Goodyear blimp based at Holmes Airport provided the first aerial traffic reports. In 1937, the airport's owners sought a court injunction to stop New York City from spending $8,444,300 () to develop the smaller North Beach Airport, only a mile or so to the northeast, into the much larger

LaGuardia Airport LaGuardia Airport is a civil airport in East Elmhurst, Queens, New York City. Covering , the facility was established in 1929 and began operating as a public airport in 1939. It is named after former New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia ...

. Supreme Court Justice Ernest E. L. Hammer denied the request.Fight on Queens Airport Fails
. ''The New York Times''. April 7, 1937. Retrieved March 29, 2009. LaGuardia Airport opened in 1939 and Holmes Airport closed the following year. The northern portion of Holmes Airport's land was later developed into veteran housing and the

Bulova Bulova is an American timepiece manufacturing company that was founded in 1875 and has been owned by Japanese multinational conglomerate Citizen Watch Co. since 2008. The company makes watches, clocks and accessories, and it is based in New York ...

watch factory site.

References

{{reflist

External links

JacksonHeights.nyc, the location of Holmes Airport
Defunct airports in New York City History of Queens, New York Airports established in 1929 Jackson Heights, Queens 1929 establishments in New York City 1940 disestablishments in New York (state) Demolished buildings and structures in Queens, New York

See also

References

External links