Roosevelt Field Hosts Cradle of Aviation Photography Exhibit

GARDEN CITY, NY – Shoppers at Roosevelt Field are getting a Long Island history lesson thanks to a photography exhibit the mall is hosting this month.

The Simon-owned shopping center is housing “Roosevelt Field Aviators: Exhibit and NFT Collection,” an exhibit in partnership with the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City.

Launched on Feb. 5 and ending on Feb. 27, the exhibits incorporates eight large panels of historic photos from the museum’s archive at four court areas throughout the mall: outside Macy’s near Tourneau, Nordstrom near Sephora, JCPenney near Build-A-Bear Workshop, and Dick’s Sporting Goods near the store's ground-floor entrance.

The photos feature an overview of the air field’s history during the “Golden age” of aviation on Long Island during the 1920s and ’30s, as well as an NFT collection of famous to unknown aviators from diverse backgrounds who were photographed by local photographer John Drennan. Many of the photos have never been displayed before in public.

“During this ‘Golden Age’ of aviation, Long Island, and especially Roosevelt Field, was the center of the aviation world,” the Cradle of Aviation said in a statement about the exhibit. “Fliers came from all over the country, indeed the world, just to fly or be seen here. The greatest aviators of the day made Roosevelt Field their home or port of call.”

The museum called Long Island in general and Roosevelt Field in particular a “unique place among American aeronautical centers.” Many flying schools centered about Roosevelt Field “eagerly accepted both women and minorities for flight training whereas most other aviation schools elsewhere in America did not. This gave Long Island aviation a surprising amount of cultural diversity among its aviators, most unique for this time,” the museum said.

The Cradle of Aviation is minting some of the NFTs to help fund the preservation of the collection.

The exhibit comes as both Roosevelt Filed and the Cradle of Aviation Museum celebrate anniversaries this year. The mall was opened 65 years ago; the museum 20 years ago. The mall is home to more than 250 stores; the museum to more than 75 air and spacecraft.