Also known as Grand Central Air Terminal (GCAT), the airport was an important facility for the growing Los Angeles suburb of Glendale 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).

[3] 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.

[8] GCAT became a major airport of entry to Los Angeles and provided the first paved runway west of the Rocky Mountains.

Within a year, the entire enterprise was sold to the Curtiss-Wright Flying Service,[9] managed by C. C. Moseley, a co-founder of the future Western Airlines.

It was also at Grand Central that Moseley established the first of his private flying schools, Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute (later renamed Cal-Aero Academy).

The airport was the setting of several films, including Howard Hughes' Hell's Angels (1930), Shirley Temple's Bright Eyes (1934), Lady Killer (1933) starring James Cagney, Sky Giant (1938) with Joan Fontaine, Hats Off[17] (1936) with John Payne, the musical Hollywood Hotel[18] (1937) with Dick Powell, and the adventure film Secret Service of the Air (1939) starring Ronald Reagan.

The government moved in, heavily camouflaged the place, and converted it into an important defense base for Los Angeles.

[22] The Grand Central Flying School (GCFS) started out at the airfield and evolved into the Cal-Aero Flight Academy (CAFA).

Before its closing, the airport hosted a SCCA National Sports Car Championship race on November 13, 1955, that attracted 6,000 spectators.

The closed airport was then used as a private heliport for the Los Angeles Police Department's fleet of police helicopters, some Bell 47s ("recips") and some Bell 206s ("Jet Rangers"), until the new LAPD Hooper Heliport opened on top of the Piper Tech Building in downtown Los Angeles in 1983.

Additional details were released in March 2000 indicating that it would have 3.6 million square feet in several four- to six-story buildings for office, production and sound stages and hold 10,000 employees.

This phase consisted of two 125,000-square-foot office buildings on a company owned 100-acre lot at 1101 and 1133 Flower St. which were to fit in with the Art Deco motif design of the KABC-TV studio facility nearby the campus (KABC had relocated from their previous home base at The Prospect Studios, formerly the ABC Television Center West).