Save the Date!

On Saturday, May 9th, 2026, JBRPC will partner with the National Park Service for the second biennial Floyd Bennett Field! Public Arts Festival.

Floyd Bennett Field, New York City’s first municipal airport and the busiest naval air station in the nation during World War II, is a site where history and imagination intersect. From its importance for Indigenous Lenape people, through the community and industry of Barren Island, to the daring flights of Amelia Earhart, Howard Hughes and other aviators, and its transformation into America’s first urban national recreation area, the airfield tells a century-old story of experimentation, renewal, and innovation. 

The 2026 Public Arts Festival will celebrate this historic site with a playful version of the “dinner and a show” concept. As the sun sets over the landscape, neighbors and friends will gather for The Longest Table, a collective outdoor dinner that turns dining into art and conversation into connection, accompanied by music and family-friendly lawn activities. When night settles, the hangars will come alive once more, washed in color, motion, and sound, with newly-commissioned digital artworks projected onto the unique brick and glass canvas of the building façade. 

The projection mapping exhibition is co-curated and co-produced by JBRPC and Onassis ONX. Rooted in themes of water, nature and innovation, the artworks will explore Floyd Bennett Field’s deep connection to the waterfront, a defining element of the site’s prominence in Jamaica Bay and proximity to the Atlantic Ocean – a stretch of New York City coastline where imagination and innovation have always converged. Artworks will reflect and re-imagine this historic space, transforming architecture and light into a celebration of place and possibility.

The 2024 Public Arts Festival drew more than 1,700 attendees and 23,000+ digital participants, showcasing original, site-specific artworks digitally mapped across the 11,000-square-foot façade of Hangars 3 & 4, two monumental historic airplane hangars, creating an unforgettable visual experience. The Festival offered an immersive celebration of Floyd Bennett Field, reimagining its architecture and history through imagery and storytelling, and firmly established the site as a new arts destination within Gateway National Recreation Area.