Curtiss-Essex Airport

By the time the airport in Fairfield officially opened, it was no longer being called Marvin Airport, but instead Curtiss-Essex Airport, yet Walter Marvin of Montclair remained omnipresent. On October 29, 1930, The Montclair Times carried a front page article about the airport's opening with a photo of the dashing, six-foot-four tall Marvin whom Alex Davidson later learned from one of Marvin's daughter-in-laws had been dubbed "the most handsome man in Manhattan." The official grand opening was attended by 40,000 people, including twenty-year-old Juliet Marston of 21 Erwin Park Road, Montclair who had learned to fly solo at the field in a record five-and-a-half hours of instruction, beating the likes of Amelia Earhart, a visitor to the Marvin’s home. The previous record at the airport was eleven hours.

In July 1931, Marvin organized the Aviation Country Club of New Jersey, joining others in Boston, Philadelphia, Westchester County, and Hicksville, L.I. Many of the club members were from Montclair, more than ten of them owned planes, and it was announced that Walter L. Conwell, who lived in the town and was president of the Downtown Athletic Club of New York, had just purchased a Pitcairn Autogiro. The club utilized the Happy Landings Tea Room in North Caldwell as its headquarters, and envisioned having a pool and tennis courts that members could enjoy after flying.

Three months later The New York Times reported that speed flier, Captain Frank Hawks, entertained the club members and their guests, including Helene du Pont, daughter of industrialist E.I. du Pont, whose family was among America's wealthiest at the time.

But alas, the Great Depression was deepening. In 1932, Curtiss-Wright got out of flight training. By 1933, the club was doing fundraising for the 600 unemployed in Montclair, and Curtiss Airport Corporation sold off many of its airports. In 1934, the airport's name was changed to Caldwell Wright Airport. The flying fever that had soared in Montclair after Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic had stalled, and the airport would not take off again until World War II made it an important hub for Curtiss-Wright.

Marvin who had been a director of the Montclair Art Museum, where a picture of him as an older man appears in a book about the museum's history, went on to a similar position at the New York Metropolitan Museum. This Renaissance man also was made an honorary Officer of the Order of the British Empire, shortly before his death, in recognition of his promotion of Anglo-American understanding.

Alex Davidson tracked down a granddaughter in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, M. J. Mathews, who sent Alex 16mm movies that had been handed down by the Marvin family over three generations. Included was footage of "Slim," a moniker that Lindbergh's friends used for him, who had visited the Marvin home at 184 Upper Mountain Avenue and traveled the country with them, promoting the vision of T.A.T.

Another rarity in the home movies is film of the Will O' The Wisp II, a de Haviland moth monoplane, flown by Mrs. Arthur Cleaver of London, who flew solo from England to India before visiting the Marvins.

For Alex, the real find, however, was footage taken on opening day of Curtiss-Essex Airport, October 26, 1930. The rare films, which Alex had digitally preserved on DVD, show the crowd, estimated by Alex's grandfather at 35,000 people, stretching around the perimeter of the airport to see the ceremonial festivities as well as parachuting, spot-landing and bomb-dropping competition for the Marvin Cup, which was won by a Jackson B. Hayden, an engineer in the Montclair Department of Public Works. Miss Alfreda "Billie" Schwarz of 422 Upper Mountain Avenue, the first woman to be granted a license from the flying school, also took part in the meet.

The opening day films show close-ups of two famed pilots who gave breathtaking demonstrations: transcontinental speed record-holder Captain Frank M. Hawks passed the stands at 250 miles per hour in his Wright Whirlwind powered Travel-Air Mystery Ship, Texaco No. 13, and former Navy speed pilot Lieutenant Alford J. Williams performed "a series of vertical banks, dives, climbs and barrel-rolls, when the engine of his ship went dead as he soared in inverted flight over the watching throng…but a moment later glided safely to earth" described The Montclair Times of October 29.

The movers and shakers of aviation also are on the film: Major E. H. Brainard, President of Curtiss-Wright Flying Service; Charles “Casey” Jones, vice president of Curtiss-Wright Corp.; Walter S. Marvin, Chairman of Curtiss-Essex Airport as well as director of the flying service, T.A.T., North American Aviation, Inc., Aviation Credit Corporation and other companies; and aviation visionary C.M. Keys, Chairman of the Board of Curtiss-Wright Corp.

Equally exciting to see was a billboard painted on the side of a barn with the statement "Adjoins Curtiss 'Marvin' Airport and Greenbrook Country Club." This sign, appearing for a few seconds, verifies the short-lived existence of Marvin Airport. It is the real pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for Alex's team of researchers, although Phyllis also was thrilled to discover that a Tiffany & Co. executive, George Kunz, had written a history of the pearl which actually came from the Third River. Coincidentally, his wife, Opal, had learned how to fly at the rival Newark Airport and took off with her instructor.

Today, after numerous name changes, Montclair's Marvin Airport is now Essex County Airport and perhaps a dozen Montclair residents continue to fly planes from there. Truer to Marvin's vision, New Yorkers find it convenient. Unfortunately, this is best attested to by the ill-fated flight of John F. Kennedy, Jr. to Martha's Vineyard in July 1999.

Three quarters of a century after it was developed into one of the Curtiss Airports Corporation's chain of over a dozen airports, the airfield envisioned by the Montclair residents remains as a landmark to the dream that aviation can bring "peoples together, closer to understanding."

Copyright 2004 David Price Cannon