May 23/24, 2020 – Before the airport an amusement park

By admin

THIS IS THE 59TH ISSUE OF
FROM THE ARCHIVES

MAY 23-24, 2020  WEEKEND EDITION

STEINWAY VILLAGE
GALA AMUSEMENT PARK 
GLENN CURTIS FIELD
HOLMES AIRPORT
LA GUARDIA AIRPORT

History From colonial times to the early 1900s, the area now known as East Elmhurst was a vast marsh named Trains Meadow. Urbanization at the turn of the century was creating a New York City housing shortage and urban sprawl. In 1909,

Edward A. MacDougall’s Queensboro Corporation bought 325 acres (132 ha) of undeveloped land and farms to the south and christened them Jackson Heights after John C. Jackson, a descendant of one of the original Queens families and a respected Queens County entrepreneur.

The neighborhood formerly contained an amusement area along Bowery Bay Beach (later renamed North Beach), which started operating in 1886.] An amusement park called Gala Amusement Park was built by William Steinway on the Bowery Bay in what is now present-day LaGuardia Airport. In the 19th century the area used to be called Frogtown before Steinway rebuilt the area. It was home to the East Coast’s first Ferris wheel and was known as the “Coney Island of Queens.”Gala Amusement Park was eventually shut down due to Prohibition.

In 1929 it was razed and transformed into a 105-acre (42 ha) private flying field named Glenn H. Curtiss Airport after the pioneer Long Island aviator, later called North Beach Airport.[16] Starting in 1937, a Works Progress Administration project transformed North Beach Airport into LaGuardia Airport, which formally opened in 1939.

The first houses were built in 1905. These residences were small frame houses located on 40-by-100-foot (12 by 30 m) lots, and some houses on the bay contained private beaches. The neighborhood’s first commercial development came to Ditmars Boulevard during World War II.

[n 1929, Holmes Airport opened near the western section of East Elmhurst. Bordering St. Michaels Cemetery to the west, the airfield was also called the Grand Central Air Terminal and Grand Central Airport.[ Holmes Airport shut down in 1940, one year after LaGuardia Airport opened.

Today, the site is part of the Bulova Corporate Center and residential homes that surround the area.

Steinway’s first factory was on Park Avenue in Manhattan. He developed this area in Astoria as a company town for his employees.

Steinway Village: A Company Town

A desire to remove employees from Manhattan’s teeming humanity, particularly organized labor and “the machinations of the anarchists and socialists,” inspired William to purchase 400 acres across the East River in a bucolic, sparsely-populated area of Astoria, New York. With space for much-needed expansion, William set about creating the company town of Steinway where the firm could cast its own piano frames and saw its own lumber. Steinway & Sons pianos are still manufactured at this location.

William approached the development of Steinway with characteristic thoroughness, wading through rainy salt meadows in “great India rubber boots” inspecting property, overseeing street surveys, and assessing employee housing construction later advertised as “country homes with city comforts.” Diary entries reflect William’s pride in creating a company town where workers could own brick homes, drink fresh water, and stroll under shade trees on Steinway Avenue—still the main thoroughfare in this part of Queens.

He donated land and built a public school, fire house, post office and churches to further his vision. A network of horse-car railroads, streetcars, trolleys, and ferries provided access to the settlement and brought in additional income.

What would become North Beach Amusement Park offered “respectable people” an alternative to Coney Island and the chance to experience evening festivities illuminated by the novelty of electric lighting. “To farm, where it is splendid, Mill & foundry in fine running order, three of the six houses are being roofed. Steinway Ave. making good progress.”

NORTH BEACH AIRPORT

The site of the airport was originally used by the Gala Amusement Park, owned by the Steinway family. It was razed and transformed in 1929 into a 105-acre (42 ha) private flying field named Glenn H. Curtiss Airport after the pioneer Long Island aviator, later called North Beach Airport.

LA GUARDIA AIRPORT

Imagine boarding your Pan Am China Clipper to fly to Europe at La Guardia

HOLMES AIRPORT

The Bulova Watch Company, now Bulova Center is built on the site of Holmes Airport.

MYSTERY PHOTO OF THE DAY

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YESTERDAY’S IMAGE

Strecker Memorial Laboratory in Southpoint Park

GUEST EDITOR IS MISS BEANO EWALD DANZIG

Unlike you humans, I just jumped into the car and have escaped social distancing by coming to my beachfront retreat. I thought that all cats socially distance all the time!  I will lounge in the sun and try to find a place to snooze 24/7.   Looks like a tough life out here in the country. 

Love to everyone on Roosevelt Island and my home care attendant, Judy.

Funding Provided by:
Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation Public Purpose Funds
Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD
Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C)