Gateway National Recreation Area visitors were treated to a park ranger talk sponsored by the National Park Service (NPS) on Sunday, February 16th, to learn about Howard Hughes, his many careers and his connection as a record-breaking historical figure who made aviation flight history right outside the room where the event took place at the Ryan Visitor Center at Floyd Bennett Field.
“He’s kind of forgotten about today, but he’s one of the real characters of the 20th century, and character in every sense of the word,” NPS Ranger Lincoln Hallowell said as he began his presentation about the epic life of Howard Hughes (1905-1976), one of the wealthiest men in the world.
“Remember the ‘World’s Most Interesting Man’ commercial?” Hallowell said. “He was that.” With the aid of a slideshow presentation, Hallowell showed photos from different periods of Hughes’ adventurous, eccentric and, later, dark and reclusive life. Hughes was so interesting that a Martin Scorsese movie was made about him, titled The Aviator, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
Hughes inherited his wealth from his father’s invention of the Hughes Drill Bit, which could cut through layers of rock in the days of oil drilling, and from his successful family tool company, which enabled him to go to the finest universities, become an engineer and follow his many eclectic interests as a successful business magnate.
His parents both died before he turned 20, leaving him a vast fortune, which he used to invest in the aviation and filmmaking industries, and real estate ventures in Las Vegas. He wanted to be the greatest at many things and, for the most part, accomplished many of his goals.
As a prolific producer of aviation-themed movies, he introduced actress Jean Harlow in the 1930s film, Hell’s Angels. According to Hallowell, “Howard liked the ladies.” He dated Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner and other beautiful actresses of the era.
When Hughes learned of the advent of sound in the movie The Jazz Singer, he spent a small fortune refilming the nearly completed Hell’s Angels in sound, which showed him to be a visionary and perfectionist. The film and many of his groundbreaking endeavors were extremely successful and only expanded his immense wealth.
During filming and in his work, he made many of his own aviation innovations, risking life and limb in the process, and crashed many times, incurring serious injury.
Hughes was the founder and owner of Trans World Airlines (TWA) and is famous for building one of the largest wooden aircraft built at that time called the Hughes H-4 Hercules (also known as the “Spruce Goose”), as well as several other new aircraft models.
Closer to home, Hughes was recruited by the World’s Fair committee to promote the 1939 World’s Fair by flying around the world. “He got himself a Lockheed “Electra” and set himself over in Hangar 8, right over here,” Hallowell said as he pointed out the window.
Departing from Floyd Bennett Field on July 10, 1938, Hughes and his crew returned three days later after making stops along the way. He was met by about 50,000 people in mobs of cheering crowds on the airfield right outside of the Ryan Visitor Center. He was later feted with a ticker-tape parade in the Canyon of Heroes in Lower Manhattan.
“People were right on the balcony standing right there,” Hallowell said as he pointed to the balcony outside of the room. “They were lined up all down the Hangar Row — cars were backed up all the way down Flatbush Avenue.”
Hallowell has led the History Program at Floyd Bennett Field for the past 25 years and was also featured in a story for the Canarsie Courier earlier in the month (see NPS Ranger Tells the Story of Jacob Riis – with a Surprise Ending of his Own, Canarsie Courier, February 13, 2025).
