Newsday (Suffolk Edition) from Melville, New York • 29

TODAY (SUNDAY) THROUGH TUESDAY TRUTH IN ADVERTISING TSS WE SINCERELY WANT TO SATISFY YOU GJ SEEDMAN Chairman HR DIETZ President Newsday Photo by Bob Luckey The original terminal building at LaGuardia Airport is 40 years old today Memories Renovations For Birthday TSS TRUE USUAL PRICES ON OUR ENTIRE COLLECTION dren in Queens Village He does not get around too well "The old engine make it uo the hill any he says Every once in a while a plane passes over and it still takes his breath away But he go back to the airport But some of the old-timers will be there Like Rabbi Jacob Polish who will come by and remember the way it was 40 years ago on the day they opened the airport "It was a beautiful said Polish who was a 25-year-old brand-new rabbi on the day of the dedication "I was on the platform with Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Robert Moses And I even remember what I said I said: 'We have learned to fly through the heavens like the birds We have learned to probe the depths of the oceans like the fish Now dear Lord teach us to walk the earth like "I said that then 40 years ago tell you something: It is now more appropriate than There are threads of sentiment entwined with LaGuardia more than with any other airport in the area "It is the human said George Pierce the airport manager whose office overlooks its 650 acres "We know the employees by name But because there are only 8000 as opposed to 40000 at The airport was the brainstorm of the feisty Mayor LaGuardia In 1936 he boarded an airplane at Chicago At the final destination Newark he refused to leave the aircraft "The ticket says New he said The airline finally called in -a special crew and flew LaGuardia to Floyd Bennett Field a military facility in Brooklyn and the campaign for a municipal airport had begun The old North Shore Amusement Park at Sanford Point in Queens was selected as the site A "miniature Coney at the turn-of-the-cen-tury it had been acquired in 1929 by the Curtiss-Wright company which opened a private flying field In 1937 President Franklin Roosevelt approved plans for using Works Progress Administration funds for converting the field into a municipal airport Two years later it opened As in many WPA projects of that time a great work of art was built into the Marine Terminal building It was a 12-foot high 235-foot circular mural entitled The artist was James Brooks But during the 1950s someone in government thought he detected a subversive hammer and sickle in one of the panels and the mural was painted over Last year Alan Farancz began a restoration of the mural "LaGuardia Airport will be 40 years old on December Authority Press Release By Kenneth Gross LaGuardia Airport-Some things remain The old railroad tracks like fingers half-buried in the cement still point to the hangars where the trans-Atlantic clippers were kept And the old Marine Terminal Building with its marble laurel of flying fish waits like an unopened Egyptian burial chamber There will be no ceremony to mark the anniversary nothing to said a Port Authority spokesman not the same place that it was in 1939 when it opened the He was wrong The field is haunted by memories and ghosts of flying boats and Depression art It is an airport from the old days when people slept on bunk beds during overseas flights The very name evokes memories of fog and the sound of propellers The old mural of painted over in the by fear that it contained a subversive message is being restored And the old Yankee Clipper flies again though only as a model airborne over the main lobby The people who know the airport best are not always eager to tamper with the memories "I want to go back for the said Eddie Juengst who more than anyone else knows gone and what remains "I want to go back there for anything I hate happening to happening is expansion There were only a few thousand passengers those first years Today there are 18 million every year "I used to swim there in Flushing Bay when it was still an amusement said Juengst who is 80 years old "That was back then A long time ago when it was still North the Little Coney One day in 1912 Juengst who lived in Maspeth was riding his bicycle near Belmont Park and saw his first airplane take off from the infield "I he said 'That thing took my breath away I was bit by the flying bug and never gotten over That began Eddie air career He became an airplane mechanic in World War I Then he came home and worked at LaGuardia when it was a private field and when it became a municipal field He was the chief of operations for 10 from 1957 until he retired in 1967 Juengst lives with his grandchil 14k Gold Earrings Exquisite styles at incredible savings! 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