Brooklyn · Kings County
Floyd Bennett Field
NYC Parks
- Location
- Flatbush Avenue at the Belt Parkway, Marine Park / Mill Basin
- Size
- 1,339 acres
- Hours
- Daily sunrise to sunset
- Type
- NYC Parks
Floyd Bennett Field is a 1,339-acre former municipal airport in southeastern Brooklyn, now part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. It was New York City's first municipal airport, opening in 1931 and hosting record-breaking flights by Amelia Earhart, Wiley Post, and Howard Hughes.
The airfield was named for Floyd Bennett, a naval aviator who piloted the first flight over the North Pole with Richard Byrd in 1926. Bennett died of pneumonia in 1928 while flying medical supplies to stranded explorers, and the city honored him by naming its new airport after him.
During World War II, the field served as a Naval Air Station, with thousands of military personnel stationed there. The hangars and runways from both the civilian and military eras survive as historic structures within the park.
Today Floyd Bennett Field offers camping (the only public campground in Brooklyn), community gardens, sports fields, model airplane flying, and miles of flat terrain ideal for cycling and running on the former taxiways and runways.
Floyd Bennett Field is one of the most remarkable open spaces in New York City: a vast, flat expanse where the ghosts of aviation pioneers share the landscape with community gardeners, campers, and cyclists.