NEWS
Aviation

140-99: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE , November 30, 1999

LAGUARDIA AIRPORT TO CELEBRATE 60TH ANNIVERSARY WITH APPEARANCE BY ONE OF AIRPORT'S FIRST PASSENGERS


Sixty years ago this week, Michael Katen was on board the first flight to land at LaGuardia Airport - a TWA DC-3 enroute from Chicago. On Thursday, December 2, Katen will return to the Queens airport to help celebrate its 60th anniversary.

During a 10:30 A.M. ceremony at the airport's Marine Air Terminal, Katen will join Port Authority representatives to mark LaGuardia's opening on December 2, 1939.

From 7 A.M. to 10 A.M. and from 3 P.M. to 6 P.M., LaGuardia customers will be treated to entertainment, music and small giveaways to mark the occasion.

The airport was the brainchild of former New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who sought to capitalize on the success of Newark Airport, which in the early 1930s had become the busiest commercial airport in the nation. In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized construction of the new airport on Flushing Bay.

The Port Authority leased LaGuardia Airport and began to operate it on June 1, 1947. A new Central Terminal Building opened in 1964 and was enlarged in 1967 and 1992.

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