On 9 July 1953 it may have been the first scheduled helicopter airline to carry passengers in the United States, with headquarters at LaGuardia Airport.

[8] The downtown heliport on East River Pier 6 opened in 1960 and New York Airways moved all its Manhattan passenger flights down there around December 1960.

The only other flights were 15 round trips a day between JFK and the Port Authority building at the World's Fair, as La Guardia was still under construction.

Young had previously made history as the first African American flight instructor for the United States Army Air Corps.

N6676D is shown taking off from the Downtown Manhattan/Wall St. Heliport in the last of the Secret Agent 077 trilogy of films, 1966's Special Mission Lady Chaplin.

On October 14, 1963, New York Airways Flight 600, a Boeing Vertol 107, registration N6673D, crashed shortly after takeoff from Idlewild Airport (now JFK) en route to Newark via Wall Street.

[12] On July 15, 1969, de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 200 N558MA was 12 minutes behind schedule on a flight from New York to Newark, so the pilot decided to take off from a runway intersection.

During initial climb the plane was caught in the wake vortex of a departing jet and crashed, killing 3 (2 crew and 1 passenger) of the 14 occupants.

Its spinning principal rotor blades killed four passengers waiting to board (including movie director Michael Findlay) and injured a fifth.

Compounding the accident was the failure of both hydraulic systems due to the loss of the tail rotor gear box, which rendered the aircraft virtually uncontrollable.