Floyd Bennett Field was New York City’s first municipal airport, later a naval air station, and is now a park. While no longer used as an operational commercial, military or general aviation airfield, a section is still used as a helicopter base by the New York City Police Department (NYPD).
Located in Marine Park, southeast Brooklyn, the field was created by connecting Barren Island and a number of smaller marsh islands to the mainland by filling the channels between them with sand pumped from the bottom of Jamaica Bay.
The airport was named after famed aviator and Medal of Honor recipient Floyd Bennett, a Brooklyn resident at the time of his death. It was dedicated on June 26, 1930, and officially opened on May 23, 1931.
The IATA airport code and FAA airfield identifier code was NOP when it was an operational naval air station and later coast guard air station, but now uses the FAA Location Identifier NY22 for the heliport operated there by the NYPD.
Since 1972, Floyd Bennett Field has been a part of Gateway National Recreation Area, managed by the National Park Service. Many of the earliest surviving original structures are included in a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
They are among the largest collections and best representatives of commercial aviation architecture from the period, and due to the significant contributions to civil aviation and military aviation made there during the Interwar period.
