Tuesday Trivia: Port Authority Pop-up Quiz!!

Posted on August 18, 2015 by PANYNJ PORTfolio

DID YOU KNOW THAT . . .the George Washington Bridge is named in honor of our first president for a specific reason? The bridge sits near Fort Washington in New York and Fort Lee in New Jersey, locations where General Washington built Revolutionary War fortifications for his American forces during the Occupation of NYC.

  •  With over 105 million motorists crossing it each year, the George Washington Bridge is the busiest motor bridge in the world?
  • Prior to 1963, the official name of the John F. Kennedy International Airport was known as the New York International Airport? But people didn’t call it that; it’s popular name was Idlewild Airport, after the marshy tidelands of the defunct Idlewild Golf Course, on top of which the airport was built.
  • Newark International Airport, which opened in 1928, was the world’s first major commercial airport? For 15 years after its opening, Newark was the busiest commercial airport in world; at one point, one-third of the world’s air traffic used its runways.
  • An amusement park once stood on the same patch of land in East Elmhurst, Queens where LaGuardia Airport now stands? Called the Gala Amusement Park, the theme park was operated by the Steinway Family from the late 19th century until the mid-1920s.
  • After realizing that tensions were high in Europe, former White House Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur, commissioned Stewart International Airport into a military base? MacArthur ordered West Point to practice flying planes throughout WWII because he realized that airplanes would play a pivotal role in deciding the war’s victors. He believed Stewart was the perfect location to train West Point Cadets.
  • The Port District is roughly an area within a 25-mile radius of the Statue of Liberty? It encompasses many sizeable cities and boroughs, including Newark, Elizabeth, Jersey City, Bayonne, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Staten Island and parts of Long Island.
  • That PATH offered the world’s first fully air-conditioned fleet of rapid transit cars? The first modern PATH cars introduced in 1965 had air conditioning, padded seats and colorful interiors.
  • Even though the Outerbridge Crossing, connecting Perth Amboy, New Jersey and Tottenville, Staten Island, is the outermost crossing in the Port District, that’s not why it’s called that. The bridge was named after Eugenius H. Outerbridge, the first Chairman of the Port Authority.
Posted in airport terminals, airports, aviation, history, John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, PANYNJ, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Newark Airport: America’s First Love Affair with Flight

Posted on August 13, 2015 by PANYNJ PORTfolio

By Roz Hamlett, Editor

In 1928 the same year Amelia Earhart was winning the hearts, minds and imaginations of Americans by becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic (as a passenger), the first hard-surfaced strip of any commercial airport facility in the nation was under construction at Newark Airport.  After a small four-passenger monoplane from Washington, D.C. made the first landing that year in August, the airport quickly became the world’s busiest airport.

By 1931, only three years later, 90,177 travelers had used it.  Then as now, an increase in passenger traffic led to a demand for better amenities, and consequently, an administration building that housed a passenger terminal, restaurant and hotel rooms was soon constructed.

After setting numerous  aviation records, including becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, Ms. Earhart returned to Newark in 1935 to become the first person to fly solo nonstop from Mexico City to Newark.

Aside from Ms. Earhart’s accomplishments, and those of other aviators like Charles Lindbergh, Newark Airport would go on to claim many aviation firsts:  the first paved runways; the first nighttime runway lighting and radio beacons, which allowed round-the-clock flight operations and safe landings through fog; and the first air traffic control tower in the United States, a structure that was later designated a national historic site.  Newark had the first airport weather station, which enabled safer air travel.  And it established the first airport post office, the logical outgrowth of another innovation of the time – airmail.

Thomas A. Edison himself even visited Newark Airport to pick up a few pointers on the construction of his beloved “windmill aeroplane.”

Today we associate Newark Liberty International Airport with the heavily developed and industrialized areas of North Jersey, where flight operations and the amazing sight of jet underbellies are in full view from the roadway of the New Jersey Turnpike.

Yet, the airport was constructed on the southernmost portion of the Meadowlands – formerly a damp marshy site that required more than 1.5 million cubic feet of dry fill – which included 7000 Christmas trees and 200 metal safes to be exact – to prepare it for paving and the building of an airfield.

With the passage of time, industrial development and population shifts during World War II and the Port Authority takeover of Port Newark, business was attracted to the area and economic development boomed. One of the airport’s first managers was Colonel Edwin E. Aldrin, whose son “Buzz” would later become the second man on the moon.

In 1926, just two years before Newark Airport was established, all the airlines in the country put together had a total of only 28 planes.   At the dedication ceremony in Newark, General James H. Doolittle, an aviator who later became vice president of Shell Oil, said “We knew that airports would soon be as indispensable to major cities as railroad stations and good roads.  Aviation today is our first line of defense – and it is indispensable to our economy.”

 

 

Posted in airports, first nonstop flights, history, history buffs, history of aviation, Newark Liberty International Airport, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Holland Tunnel: the World’s Cleanest Tunnel

Posted on August 11, 2015 by PANYNJ PORTfolio

Have you ever driven through the Holland Tunnel and wondered how in the world – given all the accumulated grit, grime and soot that exhausts from hundreds upon thousands of cars and trucks – the Port Authority manages to keep 87-year-old tile relatively spotless and white? When some of us can’t manage a few feet of kitchen backsplash or the tile in a shower stall?

Recently Portfolio paid a visit to the Holland Tunnel late one night to investigate.  We rode shotgun in the back-up truck with GM Steve Bednarz behind two “brush trucks.” What we discovered was a dedicated and self-effacing overnight crew of General Maintainers, who don’t get much attention, but who, nevertheless, perform critically important jobs that most people in this region don’t even know exist during the wee hours of the morning.

They are among the ranks of unsung heroes of the Port Authority, some of whom left their homes and families behind when SuperStorm Sandy hit Port Authority’s facilities, and who worked round-the-clock to restore things back to normal:  People like James Harris, Kevin Hines, Doug Hildebrandt, Nick Mascolo, Rob O’Keeffe, Hans Zamora and their boss, John Foye (no relation to Executive Director Pat Foye).

Watch these two short videos – first, as the boom on a specially outfitted truck slowly and dramatically extends to its full length to reveal heavy-duty brushes.   Second, as two trucks working one behind the other makes the pass through one closed lane of the SOUTH TUNNEL of the Holland, soap is dispensed and 5,000 gallons of water are pushed across the ceiling and walls of the Holland — with one of the lowest clearances — which would be black in a week or so were it not regularly scrubbed.  Four brushes are mounted on each truck, which cover the ten foot width of each lane.

Posted in NY/NJ region, Pat Foye, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment