Holmes Airport (occasionally known as Grand Central Air Terminal and Grand Central Airport"Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields: New York City, Queens". www.airfields-freeman.com. Retrieved June 12, 2017.) was an airport in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens in New York City that operated from 1929 to 1940.
History Real estate developer E. H. Holmes built the airport on approximately of undeveloped land. He organized and sold stock in Holmes Airport, Inc., but claimed that some wanted to see him fail. In February, 1929, Clarence D. Chamberlin, the aviator Viola Gentry, and Dorothy Stone, actress and daughter of Fred Stone, broke ground for the new airport. According to a contemporary street map, it extended as far as 79th Street to the east, 68th Street and St. Michael's Cemetery to the west, Astoria Boulevard to the north, and 31st Avenue to the south. The airport had two hangars, an office, and two gravel runways, of and in length, respectively.
The new airport opened on Saturday, March 16, 1929, attracting 100,000 visitors on its second day of operation."Sunday Throngs Pack New Holmes Airport". The New York Times. March 18, 1929. Retrieved March 29, 2009. Later that year, the first scheduled flights from New York City began when Eastern Air Express started a two-day service to Miami from Holmes.
In April 1930, thousands of people paid $1 each () for a ride in an airplane. It was promoted as an experiment to ascertain whether it was fear or the expense that kept the public from flying."Thousands Take $1 Plane Rides in Test To Learn if Fear or Expense Defers Flying". The New York Times. April 21, 1930. Retrieved March 29, 2009.
On Sunday, November 11, 1934, sixty-four airplanes took part in a novelty race involving a treasure hunt and pie-eating contest, the winner returning in 28 minutes."64 Airplanes Race To Pie-Eating Line". The New York Times. November 12, 1934. Retrieved March 29, 2009.
Blimps also used the airport. Goodyear erected a hangar in 1931 and conducted sightseeing flights."The College Point Airship Park". Airship, The Journal of The Airship Association. No. 126. September 1999. Retrieved March 29, 2009. In 1936, a Goodyear blimp based at Holmes Airport provided the first aerial traffic reports."Some Notable 'Firsts'; Firsts by Air". The New York Times. November 15, 1998. Retrieved March 29, 2009.
In 1937, the airport's owners sought a court injunction to stop New York City from spending $8,444,300 () to develop the smaller North Beach Airport, only a mile or so to the northeast, into the much larger LaGuardia Airport. Supreme Court Justice Ernest E. L. Hammer denied the request."Fight on Queens Airport Fails". The New York Times. April 7, 1937. Retrieved March 29, 2009. LaGuardia Airport opened in 1939 and Holmes Airport closed the following year. E. H. Holmes filed for bankruptcy in 1940 and the airport property was condemned.
The northern portion of Holmes Airport's land was later developed into veteran housing and the Bulova watch factory site. In the mid-1980s, the watch factory was converted into office space as the Bulova Corporate Center.
See also Aviation in the New York metropolitan area
References
External links JacksonHeights.nyc, the location of Holmes Airport Holmes Airport (Queens) – Photographs taken by Percy Loomis Sperr on August 24, 1935 at the New York Public Library