Bedford airport was hub of excitement

(From The Journal News, serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam
Counties in New York)

Bedford airport was hub of excitement

By SEAN GORMAN
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original Publication: April 10, 2006)

BEDFORD

A wooded parcel next to Bedford Village Memorial Park seems an unlikely
place to find a piece of history from aviation's early days.

But the site, just south of the hamlet's historic Village Green, was
once part of an airfield that dates back to the barnstorming days of
the 1920 and 1930s, when daring aviators zipped through the skies and
wowed crowds with loops, dives and parachute jumps.

"It was used for flying lessons," said Walter McVicar, a next-door
neighbor on Greenwich Road and a board member of the Bedford Historical
Society. "They would have an air show (on Sundays)."

It's hard to see that the overgrown 3 acres was once a small slice of
the airfield, but McVicar said a rundown building on the property once
was used for airplane maintenance. The town is buying the land but
first wants to make sure the property's aviation past hadn't fouled the
property.

There aren't that many people nowadays who can recall the short-lived
heyday of the airfield, which once encompassed 125 acres, including the
park and the neighborhood now known as The Farms. But some longtime
residents, including Bill Banks, still remember the stunt shows. His
parents used to take him to the airfield when he was about 5.

"This was the only flat piece (of land) around, and clear at the same
time," Banks said. "It was very exciting to see these planes going up.
.... This was before anybody knew much about airplanes. To see these go
up in the air and perform as they did was certainly amazing."

There were also small airports in Scarsdale, Cortlandt, Valhalla and
Armonk. An airstrip started in Mahopac in the 1940s continued to
operate until about six years ago.

"It's a phase through which America went in the '20s," Banks said about
local airstrips. "I would say that, probably, it happened in hundreds
of little towns in the country."

Eileen Powell, who lives near the former airfield, said she used to go
there with friends when she was a teenager.

"It was exciting," said Powell, 84. "That was our entertainment,
believe it or not, in Bedford."

The Bedford airfield was started by Dr. K. La Roe and later operated by
Webster Schmaling, according to a 1935 article in The New York Times,
and was no stranger to the dangers of early aviation.

A German parachutist, Paul Wintermeyer, was killed in 1929 when his
parachute failed to open, according to "Westchester: Portrait of a
County," by Alex Shoumatoff.

The late Robert G. Kelley, a friend of Banks', remembered in a written
history how he used to stop by the airport after school to chat with
pilots and mechanics.

Kelley, a World War II fighter pilot, recalled getting his first flight
lesson at the Bedford airfield in a Kinner Sportster airplane.

"Needless to say, the thrill of that day will never be forgotten,"
wrote Kelley, who died in 1995.

Some neighbors complained about noise from the airport, and oil from
plane engines falling on their gardens, Kelley wrote. Amid neighbor
complaints and the Depression-era economy, the airport closed in the
mid-1930s, he wrote.

The current property owner, Vernon Hills Realty Corp. of Armonk, had
once proposed building several homes on the 3 acres, but it has opted
instead to sell the land to Bedford, which is in contract to buy it for
$1,150,000.

Town Supervisor Lee Roberts said Bedford officials opted to buy the
land not because of its aviation past, but because it rests next to a
municipal park. The land will remain open space, and the environmental
investigation will make sure it's clean before the town closes on the
sale, Roberts said.

"We just want to make sure there are no underground (fuel) storage
tanks," she said. "The early indications are there's not a problem."