Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll find out about a new use for a corner of an old airport in Brooklyn. We’ll also find out who’s behind the distinctive lettering with that “New York look.”
It’s unusual place for a classroom, a far-off corner of a onetime airport in Brooklyn. Yes, Brooklyn.
The airport is left over from the stunt-happy days of fliers like Amelia Earhart, Howard Hughes and Wiley Post, as well as the pilot who took off for Los Angeles, ended up in Ireland and was forever known as Wrong Way Corrigan. Now only hobbyists with radio-controlled model aircraft fly there.
An educational and work force development nonprofit called Runway Green is looking to join them — on the ground, not in the air, and the lease that it has signed will put students “almost as far away from the runways as you can get,” said Geoff Roehm, the group’s founder. He has big plans for a small corner of what was once Floyd Bennett Field and is now part of the federally owned Gateway National Recreational Area — 1,300 acres of grassland, salt marshes and tidal mud flats that Roehm notes are one and a half times the size of Central Park.
Runway Green’s lease covers a tiny fraction of all that — just seven acres. Roehm says his group is working with the Urban Assembly to open a New York City public school there, a high school that he calls “the next version” of the New York Harbor School, which the Urban Assembly has run on Governors Island since 2010.
Roehm said the original idea was for something different at Floyd Bennett Field. “We thought maybe we could have a school out there” through NYC Outward Bound Schools, which arranges “outdoor adventure” programs for more than 100 schools across the city.
First, though, Runway Green had to arrange to use the land. “We started knocking on doors at the National Park Service,” he said. “They were initially very polite, but initially confused about who we were and what we were asking for.” And also why. “There’s not a ton of organizations coming and saying, ‘Let’s do something here.’”
The pandemic put those discussions on hold, he said, and when the conversations resumed, Roehm wasn’t just thinking about one school but “an educational campus that could serve all New York City public schools.”
“It was, let’s not make this exclusive, where 500 or 1,000 kids will be able to learn in this incredible environment — it was, how can we do this more broadly?’” he recalled.
The concept that evolved included nonprofits like the Urban Assembly, which runs 22 career-themed schools across the city. Roehm saw Floyd Bennett Field as a place to teach skills that could serve students in “green economy and new economy jobs.” He also said that the school could be a place for workshops and tests about sustainability and flooding in an era of climate change.
David Bloomfield, an emeritus professor at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center, said Runway Green’s plans look promising. But he questioned the transportation arrangements, because Floyd Bennett Field is far from subway and bus lines.
“That’s why Lindbergh took off from there,” he said. (Actually, Lindbergh’s takeoff from Roosevelt Field on Long Island for his famous trans-Atlantic flight to Paris prompted the construction of Floyd Bennett Field.)
And Roehm said that Runway Green has plans for electric buses to Floyd Bennett Field from the transportation hubs at Brooklyn College and Kings Plaza.
Weather
Today will be partly sunny after the last few rain-drenched, windblown days, with a high near 72. Look for mostly cloudy skies tonight with a low around 60.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until Oct. 3 (Shemini Atzeret).
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“If you get sick, you’re pretty much on your own.” — Wain Chin, who has driven a yellow taxi for 30 years, on cabbies’ health coverage. A taxi union wants to revive a fund that would provide medical screenings, disability insurance and other benefits.
The latest Metro news
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The brass master: Christopher Santana, a 46-year-old former corrections officer, is responsible for maintaining the shine on the 7,600 linear feet of brass surfaces — handrails, doors, display cases, mailboxes, ticket windows and a majestic 14-foot Tiffany clock that has been a go-to rendezvous spot since 1914 — at Grand Central Terminal.
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Cornell sexual assault investigation: A district attorney in upstate New York plans to reopen an investigation into accusations of a 2024 sexual assault at Cornell University and reconsider a decision not to pursue criminal charges against seven Cornell fraternity members. The move comes two weeks after a woman filed a lawsuit accusing Cornell and law enforcement officials of not doing enough to investigate the case.
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Hochul is counting on Mamdani: Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is running for re-election in November, is counting on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to help her campaign against her Republican challenger, Bruce Blakeman. But so far, Mamdani has done little to outwardly help Hochul’s re-election bid.
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Kean slightly distances himself from Trump: Representative Tom Kean Jr., the Republican from New Jersey, said that he was willing to take on President Trump over funding for a Hudson River tunnel project. In a debate with his Democratic opponent, Rebecca Bennett, Kean also said he opposed turning a warehouse in Roxbury, N.J., into a detention center for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
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License plate tracking: Public records show that police officers in New York City used Flock Safety, a system of automated license-plate readers that has been criticized as an invasion of privacy, to make more than 1,700 searches. The Police Department says that they used the technology in an ad hoc manner; the department did not have a contract with Flock.
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A Brooklyn fashionista living on $67,000: Tim Victor, a Brooklyn music teacher, has carved out an enviable glam life — including two trips to Paris Fashion Week since 2025 — on a salary of $62,000 a year. He has supplemented his income with freelance work, earning up to $5,000 a year as a model and stylist.
Who’s behind that distinctive lettering?
Maybe you saw the eye-catching lettering on Ben Shelton’s jacket during his final match at the U.S. Open. Maybe you saw similarly stylized calligraphy on embroidered totes at the Gap in Rockefeller Center. Maybe you got engraved chopsticks from the Michelin-starred restaurant Crown Shy, in the Financial District of Manhattan.
The lettering is unmistakable. The man who creates it usually goes unrecognized. Faust, he calls himself. He doesn’t disclose his real name.
My colleague Dodai Stewart says that’s hardly surprising: His roots are in graffiti, an art form that is technically vandalism. He chose to go by Faust because he thought it sounded cool and because, “as a kid doing graffiti, you’re making this Faustian deal, this deal with the devil in exchange for fame.”
He’s no longer a kid — his tags, stickers and murals have been embedded in the cityscape for decades. And brands look to work with him as a way to give items a “New York” look.
He said he had studied graffiti artists who came before him and “really tried to channel the ethos of New York City graffiti until I eventually was able to find my own voice within that.”
“So I, too, identify with it being very distinctly New York,” he added. “It’s what I know and love.”
METROPOLITAN diary
Tree-bed memorial
Dear Diary:
My aunt moved into an Upper West Side brownstone in 1973.
“I’m only leaving here in a coffin!” she often said.
When she died in November 2025, I decided impulsively that I needed to set up a memorial on the street she loved so much.
I scrounged around my apartment for art supplies, stuffed a faux peach-colored rose, some rainbow yarn and a laminated photograph of her in my bag and set off at night for her block.
I surveyed the area outside her building. A metal fence surrounding a tree bed spoke to me. I used my best sailor’s knots to secure the makeshift monument to it.
My aunt had seen many changes in the neighborhood during her 52 years there. She was also effective in preventing change: In the 1980s, when landlords tried to evict residents of single-room-occupancy hotel, her block association and partners bought it so the tenants could stay.
She was also an art historian and lover of modern art, so I know she would recognize the love beneath the surface of my terrible artwork.
Others apparently did too. More than 100 days later, through rainstorms, heavy snowfall and countless passers-by, the sailor knots held fast.
Thank you, New York, for letting it be.
— Molly Arnn
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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The post Turning an Airfield in Brooklyn Into a High School appeared first on New York Times.
