Redefining recreation: Floyd Bennett Field

06.29.10

Urban Omnibus runs a feature on Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field, a former civilian and military airport on the Jamaica Bay coast that became parkland in 1971.  The story’s contributing writer, a landscape architect, suggests that the site’s post-urban/natural hybrid landscape prefigured contemporary aesthetics in post-industrial redevelopment, and the range of activities it hosts help to reposition the idea of recreation, making the park a model for other sites in the City.

While the park hosts the usual range of organized sports, recreational activities and parking, it’s also home to Brooklyn’s largest community garden, where work-related recreational activities like planting, weeding, fence building and birdhouse painting take place. Two of the site’s giant airplane hangars support organized sports, and a third supports volunteer aviation enthusiasts who happily work to restore old airplanes.  The derelict runways provide open space for motorcyclists to practice riding and for model airplane enthusiasts to fly their planes.

For those unfamiliar with Floyd Bennett Field, the feature is worth checking out just for the images of the site, which showcase its charming mix of urban ruin and active recreational use.

Tags: history, New York City, parks, reclamation, recreation