Floyd Bennett Field was intended to give New York City its own municipal airport when construction began in 1928. Today, the former airfield is part of Gateway National Recreation Area and covers more than 1,300 acres of grassland, saltmarshes, tidal mudflats and former aviation facilities. The site in southeastern Brooklyn has changed dramatically since the first airport work began. Its runways and hangars once handled commercial and record-setting flights, and it later became a major naval aviation site before the National Park Service took over the property. The history of Floyd Bennett Field is therefore a record of how one piece of New York City land moved from marshland and landfill to aviation center, military installation and urban recreation area.
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