9. Long Ago, The Site of LaGuardia Airport Used to Be an Amusement Park

Before Glen H. Curtiss Airport, the site itself was the Gala Amusement park, a popular waterfront entertainment destination owned by the Steinway family, whose piano factory is still just nearby in Astoria. Going back even further, much of this land is landfill in the Bowery Bay. The area has gone through waves of change – an area of mansions for the wealthy, as factory housing from Steinway mixed with industrial use, to the full blown manufacturing and industrial zone it is now – including a ConEd plant, the Bowery Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant, and the Astoria Generating Company, another power plant.