Grand Central Airport (California)

Grand Central Airport is a former airport in Glendale, California. Also known as Grand Central Air Terminal (GCAT), the airport was an important facility for the growing Los Angeles suburb in the 1920s and a key element in the development of United States aviation. The terminal, located at 1310 Air Way, was built in 1928 and still exists, owned since 1997 by the Walt Disney Company as a part of its Grand Central Creative Campus (GC3). Three hangars also remain standing. The location of the single concrete 3800 ft runway has been preserved, but is now a public street as the runway was dug up[2] and converted into Grand Central Avenue.

The terminal building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 27, 2017.[3]

Beginnings

The concept for the airport probably began with Leslie Coombs Brand (1859–1925), a major figure in the settlement and economic growth of the Glendale area. He had purchased land on the lower slopes of Mount Verdugo overlooking the city, and built an imposing residence that became known as Brand Castle (which today houses the Brand Library) in 1904. Just across the mostly dry Los Angeles River he could see the

Pioneering people at GCAT

Many famous aviation pioneers made their home and their mark at GCAT, as pilots, designers, mechanics, teachers, salesmen, and airplane/power-plant builders, often serving in some combination, including:

Airlines originating at GCA included TWA,[16] Varney, Western, and Pickwick Airlines.

Charles Lindbergh, who piloted the nation's first regularly scheduled coast to coast flight from Grand Central's runway as organizer of Transcontinental Air Transport which, after merging with Western Air Express, came to be Transcontinental and Western Air, later renamed Trans-World Airlines.

Amelia Earhart used the airport and bought her first plane there.[10]

Laura Ingalls became the first woman to fly solo across the country when she landed at Glendale in 1930.

Albert Forsythe and Charles Anderson[11] were the first African American pilots who made the transcontinental flight, completed at Glendale in 1933. Their achievement paved the way for the black Tuskegee Airmen who fought in World War II.

Thomas Benton Slate built an all-metal dirigible and hangar in 1925.[12] It was 212 ft long, and supposedly fireproof. He named it "City of Glendale". It left the ground briefly in 1929, popped some rivets, and crashed.[13]

Howard Hughes built his record-setting H-1 Racer in a small building at 911 Air Way in 1935, thus beginning the Hughes Aircraft Company.[14] The building burned to the ground in the late 1990s.

Jack Northrop started his Avion Aviation company on the field in 1927, where he built multi-cellular metal structures.

William Boeing bought the business from Northrop, and moved it to Burbank's United Airport (now Hollywood Burbank Airport).

C. C. Moseley established overhaul facilities there, and operated a flight academy whose pilot and mechanic graduates traveled to Europe as the all-volunteer Eagle Squadron who flew against Hitler at the Battle of Britain before America entered the war.

Actor Robert Cummings was an active pilot and flight instructor who used this airport.[15]

Grand Central Creative Campus

In September 1999, Disney and the city of Glendale announced plans to redevelop a significant portion of the Grand Central Business Park, adjacent to the Imagineering buildings, into Disney's Grand Central Creative Campus (GC3). The $2 billion project aimed to replace the area's plain concrete structures with architecturally distinctive office buildings and enhanced landscaping, which the city hoped would spur broader redevelopment.[29]

The initial plan, unveiled in March 2000, proposed expanding Disney’s footprint to 3.6 e6sqft, featuring a studio production facility with sound stages and multiple four- to six-story office buildings, designed to accommodate up to 10,000 employees.[30] The final approved plan in 2004, however, eliminated the studio production facilities in favor of two 125000 sqft Art Deco-style office buildings at 1101 and 1201 Flower Street. The design paid homage to the original Grand Central Air Terminal and Disney’s newly constructed KABC-TV studio, which had recently relocated from The Prospect Studios.[29]

Construction of the campus' second phase began in September 2010, adding a third 338000 sqft six-story office building and a parking structure, providing space for an additional 1,200 employees.[31]

Disney undertook an extensive restoration of the historic Grand Central Air Terminal building between 2012 and 2014. By the time Disney acquired the structure in 1997, it had fallen into significant disrepair. The restoration project preserved or recreated many of the building’s character-defining elements, returning the structure to its former grandeur. The terminal now functions as both an event space and an office facility for Disney and features a small visitor center that presents photographs and original artifacts from the site's days as an airport. The restoration project earned a Los Angeles Conservancy Preservation Award in 2017.[32][33]

In November 2018, the Disney Store headquarters relocated from the Royal Laundry Complex in Pasadena to GC3.[34][35]

Disney units on the campus are:[36]

Circle 7 Animation (2004–2006)[37][38][39]

Disney Children's Center, a daycare[40]

Disney Consumer Products

Disney Research

Disney Television Animation

Disney Store headquarters

Disneytoon Studios (1990–2018)

KABC-TV

location	1310 Air Way, Glendale, California
coordinates	34.163°N, -118.2867°W
map caption	Interactive map highlighting the building's location
built	1929
architecture	Art Deco, Spanish Colonial Revival
added	March 27, 2017
refnum	100000780‡R1R‡

Grand Central Airport (California)

Beginnings

Pioneering people at GCAT

Movies and movie stars

Wartime

Postwar

Grand Central Creative Campus

See also

External links

References