Airports

Manhattan and its neighborhood last week was struggling to get out of its commercial airport muddle. It was the sort of struggle which other U. S. communities may be obliged to face.

The continental U. S. has little more than 1,300 formal airports and landing fields properly lighted and marked, although about 900 more are proposed and 4,000 casual ones exist (lots owned by municipalities, corporations, clubs, commissions and individuals). California has the most good fields, 143. Texas has 101, Pennsylvania 83, Ohio 62, Illinois 60, Oklahoma 46, New York 43, Iowa 38.

Five of New York's fields are in Manhattan's close neighborhood. Roosevelt and Curtiss fields are on Long Island, an hour from Manhattan rail and mail terminals. Hadley Field, at New Brunswick, N. J., is also an hour away; and the Teterboro, N. J., port is about the same time-distance. Newark, N. J., with its new, partially completed $7,000,000 port is some-what closer. All are inconvenient to reach. And that inconvenience impedes air travel and even mail service. Air mail is generally slower than train mail between Manhattan and Boston, Albany, Philadelphia or Washington.

At the beginning of this week Newark's municipal airport became the official air mail depot for New York City and nearby points. Hadley Field had been the terminal. The changeover was not without confusion and argument. Newark's mayor, Jerome T. Congleton, zealous for good future income on the city's $7,000,000 airport investment, demanded one cent for every pound of mail delivered to the field or sent therefrom. Pitcairn Aviation (New York-Atlantic mail) and National Air Transport (New York-Chicago mail) wished to pay a flat $600 a month fee. Mayor Congleton won out at least temporarily.

Then there was trouble of landing N. A. T.'s large Douglas mail transports on Newark's at present narrow runways. Pitcairn agreed to use its small mail planes on a shuttle service between Newark and Hadley Field, shortest air mail service in the world.

Colonial Airways, which carries mail to Boston, Albany, Montreal and Buffalo, also uses Newark and was the only one of the three comfortably snuggled there.

To give flying passengers convenience New York City authorities have commissioned Clarence D. Chamberlin to lay out a field on Barren Island in New York Harbor. Last week Barren Island was so far prepared that the Curtiss flying service made arrangements to move its headquarters ters there from famed Curtiss Field.

Another possible close-in airport is Governor's Island, the army post in New York Bay. Last week the Senate and House conferees on the War Department appropriation bill agreed to prevent construction of army barracks on a bare area of the island.

Roosevelt Field, adjoining Curtiss Field, last week, was the game of a group of New York bankers. They were forming a $1,500,000 corporation to develop Roosevelt Field for revenue. They counted chiefly on a huge new flying school and, within a few years, on trans-Atlantic transport.

The fact is that New York City proper contains acres of barren, undeveloped land. E. H. Holmes, real estate man and financier, located about 220 acres in connected parcels in Jackson Heights, seven miles from Times Square. He organized Holmes Airport, Inc., started to sell stock in it and, last week, got Clarence D. Chamberlin, Aviatrix Viola Gentry and Actress Dorothy Stone (crippled Flying-Actor Fred Stone's daughter) to turn the first clods of a new airport. The convenience of an intra-city airport seemed obvious, but Mr. Holmes felt that he had opposition. He complained: "There are a lot of people who would like to see me fail. Some of them have done everything they can to hinder me, except drop a bomb in my apartment." Who opposes him, and why, he would not particularize.

How best to build or remodel an airport is still an unsolved problem. Some ports nowadays have single, straight runways; planes often must wait on them for wind to blow in a convenient direction. Some are built with runways as crosses, others as rectangles, a few as elliptoids. Some of the rectangles and elliptoids have diagonal runways. These seem at present to be the best.

To determine the best airport design Lehigh Portland Cement Co. has offered a $10,000 prize. Architect Harvey Wiley Corbett of Manhattan is chairman of a jury of award, which includes capable architects, engineers, city planners and flyers. The cement company of course has an eye to advertising and market stimulation, but it also had a non-commercial reason in offering the money. Advertising Manager of Lehigh Cement is Roland Doane, a onetime member of the British Royal Air Force.