Miller Field And Beyond

In 1921, the city council of the Department of Education sat down and decided to establish a new public high school in the mid-eastern part Staten Island. After long calculations and hard work, they named it New Dorp High School. It was originally located a few streets away from the current building, in a smaller building which is now Staten Island Technical High School. Due to the growing population in the area, the school was moved to its current, larger building in 1982. Since then, New Dorp High School has grown into a diverse academic community.

Besides Hari IV, the steel scopture the sits in the front of the main entrance, another beautiful sight across from the building lays there. It is hard to ignore the mile-long field streches from the school’s parking lot until the shores of the New York City Lower Bay. Miller Field, named after James Ely Miller, a captain of the 95^th Aero Squadron in the Air Force, who died in a combat on March 9, 1918 over Rhiems, France in World War I and was the first United States aviator killed in the war that was serving with an American military aviation unit. Before being a part of the National Register of Historic Places as of now, it was  the only coastal defense air station in the eastern United States and was part of the network of fortifications around New York City. It was built on land formerly belonging to the Vanderbilt family. It was the last airport in New York City that had a grassy runway. Besides a runway, it also had ramps, ports for seaplanes and four hangars. It’s main purpose was to train Coast Guard personnal that were intersted in aviation.

On December 16, 1960 a Douglas DC-8 and a Lockheed Super Constellation collided west of the Miller Field. The Constellation crashed into the northwest corner of the field’s airport. And the DC8 crashed into Park Slope, Brooklyn. 135 were people were killed in total. The 1960 New York air disaster was the worst airline disaster of that decade.

Currently, the field is a local park with soccer and baseball fields. It hosts the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in the summer annually.