The Man Who Built Speed’s Airport
He founded the airfield that became Flushing Airport and ran it until his death in 1974. Advance Lodge’s records show he was raised on December 6, 1938.
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On December 6, 1938, Advance Lodge No. 635 raised a man who had already put his name on the map of Queens. Anthony “Speed” Hanzlik had founded Speed’s Airport in College Point, the field that became Flushing Airport, and he would manage it until the day he died.
The lodge records give the date of his raising and no offices afterward. The rest of his story is in the newspapers: a flier from Long Island City who spent a lifetime finding places to land, and building one for everyone else.
A Messenger at the Wright-Martin Gate
Hanzlik was born in Manhattan around 1903; the sources differ by a year. His nickname came from his first job, as a quick messenger at the Wright-Martin Aircraft factory in Long Island City.
He later worked as a mechanic for the Gates Flying Circus and became a flier soon after the First World War, before pilots had to be licensed. His obituaries say he often flew with Eddie Rickenbacker and Jimmy Doolittle, and that both remained lifelong friends.
The Field He Made
In 1927 Hanzlik leased city-owned land in College Point and opened Speed’s Airport, which he went on managing after it was renamed Flushing Airport. Accounts of the field’s early dates vary, and one history has the wetland construction beginning in 1927 and the formal opening following in 1929.
He remained its manager until his death in 1974. For a time it was among the busiest airports in New York City, until the much larger LaGuardia opened in 1939. One recollection describes two early operators on the field, Speed’s Flying Service and another firm that later left for Bayport. Goodyear blimps moored there in the 1960s and 1970s.
The ground was marsh, and keeping it usable was a long chore. A clipping thought to date from the postwar years describes Hanzlik filling in soft acreage, first with ballast that came over in wartime ships and later with rubble from local excavations, to increase the usable portion of the 166-acre property beyond about 100 acres.
His wife, Wilhelmina, had flown since 1934, made a Piper Cub cross-country trip in 1946, ran the office, and later ran the airport. The Associated Press said films shot scenes there, among them The Blaze of Noon.
Down in the Fog
His reputation as a pilot came from awkward weather and awkward assignments. In June 1931 he flew cameraman Charles T. Stoffer from New York to Saint John, New Brunswick, in a Cessna cabin monoplane, in just under six hours, to cover Ruth Nichols’s planned flight toward Paris. Nichols crashed at Saint John, and Hanzlik flew the pictures home.
Press accounts say it was the first time he had left New York state or spent a night away from his family, and, when he was forced down at New London, Connecticut, the first time he had ridden a train.
On January 2, 1936, fog caught him on a flight from Jackson Heights Airport toward Teterboro, New Jersey. He mistook the Passaic River for the Hackensack and circled a field in Prospect Park for ten minutes, waving at WPA road workers below. The landing was reported as perfect. He asked directions, took off, and ended the day back at Jackson Heights.
In September 1940, after the Hercules Powder explosion at Kenvil, New Jersey, he flew over the wreckage, and wire services carried his description of a water tower leaning “drunkenly” east.
The Man Who Said Yes or No
The Clayton Knight Committee gave him his gravest assignment. In 1941 it was sending American civilian fliers north to the Royal Canadian Air Force and the RAF, and Hanzlik handled the examinations for the New York area.
Applicants needed at least 300 hours in the air and had to be under 34, and only about one in five was accepted. The New York Times later recalled the test: a thirty-minute flight in a Stearman biplane, followed by a verdict of “You’re O.K.” or a refusal.
In September 1941 the Daily News photographed Queens Borough President Harvey swearing him in as Director of Queens Aviation.
Keeping the Field Open
He was not always popular with other pilots. In 1964, during the World’s Fair, he charged a $1.50 landing fee, and the Associated Press reported his reply to complainers: “Some of them spend money like water—drop by drop.”
By 1970 the city owned the land and leased it to him, one runway was closing for a factory, and officials debated whether Flushing would be rebuilt or drowned. He ran a repair shop, a photographic service, and a flight school from the field.
Hanzlik died at home in Flushing on July 17, 1974, and was buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery in East Elmhurst. Wilhelmina had been running the airport through his illness. The field outlasted him by a decade, closing in 1984 and slowly returning to wetland.
What the Lodge Record Keeps
Lodges remember most members by the offices they held. For Hanzlik, the Advance book keeps a date and a name, and the newspapers keep the rest: a man who set down in a Passaic field, on the East River waterfront, and in a Connecticut pasture, and who spent four decades keeping a landing place of his own open to anyone who needed one.
Endnotes
Lodge Records
- Advance Lodge No. 635 records: raising of Anthony Hanzlik, December 6, 1938, as noted by Brete Murphy.
Newspapers
- Daily News, July 18, 1974, p. 35 (obituary); September 15, 1941 (swearing-in photograph).
- The New York Times, July 19, 1974 (obituary); May 3, 1970, “Old Flushing Field May Dive or Soar”; August 18, 1977, “End of the Line for Flushing Airport?”
- Hartford Courant, July 19, 1974, p. 4 (Associated Press obituary).
- The Boston Globe, July 20, 1974, p. 25.
- Saint John Times Globe, June 19, 1931, p. 13.
- Buffalo Courier Express, June 21, 1931.
- Detroit Free Press, July 3, 1931.
- The Record (Hackensack), January 3, 1936, pp. 3 and 10.
- Vallejo Evening News, September 12, 1940, p. 1.
- San Francisco Examiner, September 13, 1940, p. 21.
- The Day (New London), March 12, 1941, p. 11.
- The Daily Item (Sunbury) and The Danville News, October 12, 1946.
- Portland Press Herald, August 27, 1964, p. 29 (Associated Press, landing fee).
- Undated clipping on filling Flushing Airport (thought to be circa 1947).
Public and Genealogical Records
- Find a Grave, Anthony “Speed” Hanzlik, memorial 182335025.
Other Sources
- Wikipedia, “Anthony Hanzlik” and “Flushing Airport.”
- Metropolitan Airport News, “Flushing Airport.”
- NYCAviation, “Remembering Flushing Airport” (2006).
- Forgotten New York, “Flushing Airport.”
- Airfields Database (Freeman), New York–Queens entries.
Continue Reading
- Advance Lodge No. 635: Lodge History — Explore the lodge Hanzlik joined in 1938.
- John I. Lovell of Advance Lodge No. 635 — Follow another life connected to the lodge.
- A Cornerstone, a Dinner, and a Borough in a Hurry — Explore an earlier chapter in the lodge’s history.
- The Lodges That Built Queens: Start Here — Discover more stories of the borough’s Masonic communities.
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