LaGuardia Airport
Facts on LGA
Before it was an airport, the site had been North Beach, a summer resort William Steinway of piano fame opened on the Flushing Bay shore in 1886. It fell into decline during Prohibition and was abandoned by the 1920s; the reclaimed airfield was briefly renamed Glenn H. Curtiss Airport in 1930, honoring the aviation pioneer who had just died.
Source: Wikipedia
The airport is named for Fiorello La Guardia, who served as mayor of New York City from 1934 to 1946, after representing the city in Congress. Known for his energetic, irascible style, he was ranked the best big-city mayor in American history by a 1993 panel of 69 scholars.
Source: Wikipedia
La Guardia earned the airport's name by championing it: furious that his TWA ticket said 'New York' while it landed him at Newark, he demanded to be flown to Brooklyn instead and pushed the city to build its own airport. The result, built on the North Beach site, opened in 1939 and was formally renamed for him in 1947.
Source: Wikipedia
LaGuardia's runways sit on landfill trucked in from Rikers Island atop a metal reinforcing framework -- and that buried metal still throws off aircraft compasses. Signs on the airfield warn pilots about the resulting magnetic interference to this day.
Source: Wikipedia
Inside the Marine Air Terminal hangs Flight, a 12-foot-by-237-foot mural completed by James Brooks in 1942 -- the largest artwork produced under the Works Progress Administration. The Port Authority painted over it without explanation in the 1950s, possibly over perceived left-wing imagery, before a restoration rededicated it in 1980.
Source: Wikipedia
A 1984 perimeter rule bars most nonstop flights from LaGuardia to destinations more than 1,500 miles away, meant to curb noise from the heavier aircraft long routes require. Denver was the rule's only exception at the time, since it was already served nonstop.
Source: Wikipedia
LaGuardia's terminals had grown so outdated that Port Authority director Patrick Foye described their feel as 'quaint, nostalgic but unacceptable... like the 1940s, 1950s.' The agency approved a total teardown and rebuild in 2015, and new Terminal B and Terminal C buildings finally replaced the old Central Terminal Building by 2022.
Source: Wikipedia
LaGuardia covers 680 acres on the northwestern shore of Long Island, bordering Flushing Bay, and as of 2023 ranked as the 19th-busiest airport in the United States by passenger volume -- yet only third-busiest within the New York region, behind JFK and Newark.
Source: Wikipedia