4. There’s a Man-Made Mountain That Is a LaGuardia Airport Parking Lot

ingrahams-mountain-laguardia-airport-parking-lincoln-tunnel-excavation-astoria-nycIngraham’s Mountain next to LaGuardia Airport

Ingraham’s Mountain is a man-made topographic feature that sits within the airport’s leasehold, just to the west of LaGuardia Airport. The mountain was created from excavated material from construction of the third tube of the Lincoln Tunnel in 1936 and is 86 feet high. It’s similar in height to an 8-story building, higher than most of the buildings in the area.

Within the last few years, Ingraham’s Mountain was flattened 20 to 30 feet as a staging area and is now a parking lot for LaGuardia employees. You’ll see shuttle buses constantly plying the route between Ingraham’s Mountain and a service entrance off 19th Avenue.

This “mountain”sits right next to the Bowery Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant and while the original shoreline in this neighborhood has been filled in over time, there is evidence that part of this mountain sits on the original peninsula at Bowery Bay and was an “attractive location for settlement by Native Americans.”

Ingraham’s Mountain only appears within city documents like the LGA Airport Draft Environmental Assessment (where it’s mentioned 188 times) and a New York City MTA Transit study on a rail link for LGA Airport called “Mapping the Underground City.” On Google Maps, it looks just like a big park – except it’s inaccessible to the general public.