Flushing Airport is a decommissioned airfield in northern

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 ...

. It is located in the neighborhood of College Point, near

Flushing Flushing may refer to: Places * Flushing, Cornwall, a village in the United Kingdom * Flushing, Queens, New York City ** Flushing Bay, a bay off the north shore of Queens ** Flushing Chinatown (法拉盛華埠), a community in Queens ** Flushin ...

. The airfield was in operation from 1929 to 1984.

History

Flushing Airport was constructed atop of

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The p ...

s beginning in 1927. The airport opened two years later, in May 1929. At the time, it was the last privately-owned airfield in Queens. The airport quickly became one of the main airports in the New York City area. It was originally called Speed's Airport and was one of the busiest airports in New York City before the emergence of the 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 ...

(which opened in 1939). In the early 1970s a

skywriting Skywriting is the process of using one or more small aircraft, able to expel special smoke during flight, to fly in certain patterns that create writing readable from the ground. These messages can be advertisements, general messages of celebrat ...

company operated there. Without space for expansion, the airport became very crowded as time passed. In 1977, a Piper Twin Comanche crashed shortly after taking off, killing those on board. This incident, as well as frequent flooding, led to the closing of this airport in 1984. The airport has largely reverted to wetland; its only outlet is Mill Creek, a tributary of the

Flushing River The Flushing River, also known as Flushing Creek, is a waterway that flows northward through the borough of Queens in New York City, mostly within Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, emptying into the Flushing Bay and the East River. The river run ...

and

Flushing Bay Flushing Bay is a tidal embayment in New York City. It is located on the south side of the East River and stretches to the south near the neighborhood of Flushing, Queens. It is bordered on the west by LaGuardia Airport and the Grand Central Park ...

. Several underground pipes, as well as man-made drainage ditches on the

New York City Police Academy The New York City Police Academy is the police academy of the New York City Police Department (NYPD). Within the organization of the New York City Police Department, the Chief of Training oversees the Training Bureau, which includes the Police Aca ...

campus and north of 28th Avenue, carry Mill Creek from the airport to the Flushing River. Since the outbreak of

West Nile virus West Nile virus (WNV) is a single-stranded RNA virus that causes West Nile fever. It is a member of the family '' Flaviviridae'', from the genus '' Flavivirus'', which also contains the Zika virus, dengue virus, and yellow fever virus. The v ...

in New York in the late 1990s, the land has received frequent mosquito larvicide spraying. As of 2000, Flushing Airport still had its

air corridor In the United States, airways or air routes are defined by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in two ways: "VOR Federal airways and Low/Medium Frequency (L/MF) (Colored) Federal airways" These are designated routes which aeroplanes ...

reserved under FAA regulations. A company called Airships Unlimited has been lobbying to convert the abandoned airport into a "

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 ...

port," citing the fact that Goodyear blimps used this airport in the 1960s. The benefit of this plan would be to preserve the air corridor for Flushing Airport. In 2004, the Bloomberg administration proposed rezoning the area for commercial development as part of the already existing College Point Corporate Park. However, the plan has met significant protests from the local residents who fear such zoning would bring too much traffic to the area. The proposal has since been deferred. As of September 2008, the access road was under reconstruction, to be reopened eventually as a regular public through-street. The north hangar was demolished on September 24. The remaining hangars were also demolished as of October 1. The street was opened to public use before August 2015.

References

External links

From Flying High To Sinking Deep: The Life & Death Of An Airport
Queens Tribune

* ttp://www.airfields-freeman.com/NY/Airfields_NY_NY_Queens.htm Airfield

Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields is an online database detailing information and first hand memories about airports in the United States which are no longer in operation, or are rarely used. The website was started by Paul Freeman in 1999 a ...

: New York City, Queens {{Authority control Defunct airports in New York City Airports in Queens, New York

History

See also

References

External links