![]() ![]() The airline also moved its maintenance and administrative offices to the roomier Idlewild.įiorello La Guardia passed away on September 20, 1947, the victim of pancreatic cancer. The advent of Boeing 377 Stratocruisers marked Pan Am’s gradual move to the new Idlewild Airport which was completed on February 18, 1952, when the last flight left La Guardia for Bermuda. These departures from La Guardia marked the transfer of the airline’s flying boat operations from Port Washington on Long Island, and the airport became Pan Am’s Atlantic division headquarters.įollowing military duty during World War II, the flying boats returned to commercial use but were soon replaced by Lockheed Constellations and Douglas DC-4s, the latter actually being converted military C-54 Skymasters. Boeing 314 Yankee Clipper lifted off the water for Lisbon, nearly 22 hours distant. The first Pan American flight from La Guardia departed on March 31, 1940, the same day the Overseas Terminal was dedicated. Capable of housing multiple, double-deck Boeing 314 flying boats with their 152-foot wingspans, the facility was also used to maintain the airline’s land planes. (Jon Proctor Collection)Īdjacent to the terminal, a maintenance hangar – huge for its day – was built to support Pan Am’s operation. Pan Am’s Boeing 314 Flying Boats, seen outside the Marine Air Terminal in March of 1940. The large round room is also home to a large bust of Fiorello La Guardia, sitting right in the middle of its marble floor. Titled “Flight” and created by James Brooks, it would be painted over in the 1950s due to some saying that its use of dark greens and reds gave it too much of a “communist” feel. An overhead mural inside the terminal portrayed the history of man’s creation and involvement in flight. First called the Overseas Terminal, the art deco structure was designed in 1939 by William Delano and completed a year later. The first year’s revenue from those turnstiles amounted to $150,000 in dimes (that’s over $2.5 million today).Īcross the field, the Marine Air Terminal became the port for Pan American Airways’ elegant flying boats that transported wealthy customers to Europe. ![]() For 10 cents, customers enjoyed a sweeping view of the airport ramp area and beyond. One of the airport’s major features was its “skywalk” observation deck that wrapped around the terminal building’s airside. Within a year, La Guardia was the busiest airport in the world. The airport did not open officially until December 2, 1939, when a TWA DC-3 from Chicago landed just minutes after midnight. It would become, simply, La Guardia Airport in 1947. The move took place between October and December 1939.įinally dedicated on October 15 that same year as New York City Municipal Airport, “La Guardia Field” was tacked on by a hyphen two weeks later. The airport received a major vote of confidence in October 1938 when American Airlines signed a long-term lease for Hangars 1, 3 and 5 which would house the carrier’s overhaul base and its main office, until then located in Chicago. TWA DC-2 sitting at LGA in the late 1930s, with American Airlines Hangars 1, 3 and 5 in the background. In fact, the metallic presence still affects compass readings on aircraft departing on runway 13. A beast for its time, the project required that landfill be brought from Rikers Island and a nearby garbage dump, then laid onto a metal framework. In conjunction with the City of New York and the Federal Works Progress Administration, ground was broken in 1937 to create a 558-acre airport in Flushing, Queens on a site earlier occupied by the Gala Amusement Park (then a private airfield). Scheduled flights to Boston were operated by American Airlines from this airport a year later but discontinued after only a few days of operation. The press conference that followed conveyed to the citizens of New York that it was time for a new, modern facility closer to Manhattan than Floyd Bennett Field. TWA quickly agreed to fly the mayor and several reporters on to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. Trump’s experience, it still explains why La Guardia is known as a business traveler’s airport.Īs a publicity stunt in 1934, New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia refused to deplane after landing on a TWA flight from Pittsburgh to Newark, declaring that his ticket showed his destination as New York. Thousands of men and women make a similar commute, by limo, taxi or the M60 bus from 125th Street and Lexington Avenue to catch their flights, whether on American Airlines to Chicago or Frontier to Denver. Moments later, N757AF lifts off from Runway 13, bound for Los Angeles. He boards his personal jet, perhaps one of the most distinguishable 757-200s on the Earth. Within 20 minutes he arrives at the General Aviation Terminal at New York’s La Guardia Airport. Donald Trump enters his limousine in midtown Manhattan and heads over the Queensboro Bridge. ![]()
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