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Remembering
North Beach Airport By Bill Austin I started my career in aviation in 1952 when I joined Pan Am as a Radio Mechanic at Idlewild Airport, but my interest in aviation began many years earlier when my parents and I moved into a house on the edge of North Beach Airport, the present site of LaGuardia Airport. My childhood friends and I were fascinated watching airplanes flying in and out of the airport. We would take every opportunity to get onto the airport and see the airplanes up close. The airport came into being in 1929 when aviation pioneer Glenn Curtis purchased the site of a former amusement park and built and airport which he named after himself. Unfortunately, he died in 1930 at age 52 from complications following an appendectomy. After his demise, it became known as North Beach Airport. During its heyday, North Beach Airport boasted of multiple runways, three hangars, a blimp dock and a seaplane ramp. It had huge searchlights which lit up the runways and provided night operations. Many famous flyers flew in and out of the airport. My most vivid memory was that of standing beside the giant German Flying Boat DO-X which spent the winter of 1931-1932 at North Beach Airport. It was then the largest airplane ever built. I remember seeing Mr. Gritzner, a local automobile mechanic, working on one of the twelve engines. The DO-X was occasionally opened to visitors, but my mother would not let me go on it because she heard there were rats living on board. We lived in North Beach until 1936 when we had to move because all the property in the area was acquired by New York to make room for LaGuardia Airport.
© 2004 The Long Island Early Fliers Club, P.O. Box 221, Bethpage, NY 11714-0221 • info@longislandearlyfliers.org |
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