Finding Floyd Bennett Field

Drawing from a year of research and decades of plans, Finding Floyd Bennett seeks to create a better connected park and a sustainability hub for the Jamaica Bay region.

Few places in New York City compare to Gateway National Recreation Area’s Floyd Bennett Field, a 1,300-acre park at Brooklyn’s edge with unparalleled recreational, natural, and historic resources. The site’s beginning as a series of waste processing plants at New York City’s edge reverberates in decades of disinvestment, limiting who the park serves today. This year-long Studio Course expands on the Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy’s (JBRPC) vision of transforming historic airplane Hangars 3 and 4 as a nature-based solution and climate tech hub. We propose two activation strategies – grounded in field research, a social media audit, and our conceptualization of the ideal park usershed – that can broaden visitorship and advance JBRPC’s sustainability mission. The first strategy, Connecting Floyd Bennett Field, proposes several interventions that can improve park access for existing and future users, including adding a NYC Ferry stop and opening up a new entrance to the North 40 along the Jamaica Bay Greenway. Internal circulation recommendations include creating a Bike Library and closing Floyd Bennett Field’s central runways to cars. Strategy two, The Barren Island Compost Project, honors the park’s heritage and advances JBRPC’s work of building the green workforce. By hosting the city’s largest community composting site, Floyd Bennett Field, already well-positioned to support sustainability throughout the Jamaica Bay region, can also further city-wide zero waste and climate goals. Alongside JBRPC’s vision for Hangars 3 and 4, our dual strategies can foster the park’s growth into a regionally-significant recreation, research, and restoration hub. 

Read it here:

Finding Floyd Bennett Field Final Report