Midtown Skyport

The facility you are approaching, known today as the New York Skyports Seaplane Base, is the only public seaplane terminal left in New York City. Its location at the foot of East 23rd Street is a direct result of the city's mid-twentieth-century efforts to weave aviation into the fabric of the Manhattan waterfront. While the site we see today is part of a broader marina complex that opened in 1962, the original seaplane infrastructure here was championed by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. He viewed the East River as a logical runway for business travelers to bypass the growing gridlock of the city's streets, a vision that solidified this specific stretch of Kips Bay as a hub for air-to-water transport.