CM-04: The James L. G. Fitz Patrick Papers

James L. G. Fitz Patrick, the son of Joseph and Mary Fitz Patrick, was born in the Grand Central Station area of Manhattan on July 23, 1906. He was a noted engineer, scientist, aviator, artist, humanitarian, philosopher, academician and educator with strong faith and religious convictions. Fitz Patrick earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from Manhattan College, receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1929 and his master’s degree in 1931. He also pursued post-graduate studies at New York University and Fordham University.James L. G. Fitz Patrick’s career in education spanned forty-six years. He moved to Staten Island in 1930 and taught science at St. Peter’s Boys High School in New Brighton from 1930-1938.In 1938, He received his teaching license in Applied Physics for service in day secondary schools other than junior high schools. He later taught at Textile High School in Manhattan, eventually becoming Head of the Mechanical Arts Department and Curriculum Department and serving as a student counselor and General Assistant to the Principal. At the founding of Staten Island Community College in 1956, Fitz Patrick was part of the faculty and served as Head of the Department of Mechanical Technology.He was appointed the first Academic Dean of the college in 1959, serving as Dean of the Faculty and acting under the college president in administering the academic program. He also coordinated a large part of the planning for the college’s campus in Sunnyside, completed in 1967.Fitz Patrick became Dean of the College for Operations and Development in 1971 and held that position until his retirement in 1976. Fitz Patrick was a member of many educational and engineering associations. He had a particular interest in railroads, natural flight, aviation and aeronautics. A licensed pilot, he completed a solo flight in a Piper Cub in 1931. During World War II, he served as an executive officer of the Staten Island Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol, a civil defense organization, and was a member of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. A long-time member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, he was a life-member and past chairman of the New York City Chapter of the American Society of Tool and Manufacturing Engineers. Fitz Patrick’s greatest research project focused on the ornithopter. The ornithopter is a type of aircraft that relies on the movement of flapping wings for lift, thrust and flight. Fitz Patrick sought to develop the ornithopter as a safer and more efficient means of transportation than automobiles and other types of aircraft. Ideally, the ornithopter would need little room for take off and landing and be more fuel efficient than other aircraft due to its folding wings and gliding capabilities. The difficulty of converting the technology of natural flight and beating wings into a functional ornithopter is an ongoing challenge in the field.12 Fitz Patrick’s work spanned several decades, ending only after he suffered a stroke in 1992. Fitz Patrick studied natural flight, especially in birds, and conducted experiments in his home and at Princeton University’s Forrestal Flight Research Center. Fitz Patrick experimented with flow studies, gliders, model wings, beating wing free flight devices, swinging arm studies, hand dynamometers and full-scale ornithopters, and he did complete a successful ornithopter flight late in his research career. The full-scale ornithopter was stored at Princeton University for many years, but unfortunately it has been lost. Fitz Patrick was considered a leading authority on natural flight and aeronautics in the United States during his lifetime and contributed to the field through papers, presentations and membership in professional organizations. Fitz Patrick was also active in the Staten Island community and in Roman Catholic religious organizations. He was a life member and president of the Knights of Columbus, and was created a Grand Knight Commander of Manresa in 1974.17 He was involved in his local parish, St. Peter’s in New Brighton, and the First Friday Club, a Catholic laymen’s club, where he had served as president. He was also active at the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin at Mount Loretto. Fitz Patrick served as president for the Mission’s Board of Trustees for seven years, retiring in 1988, and was honored with the Father Drumgoole Award and a shrine dedicated in the names of he and his late wife Helen Fitz Patrick in 1989.18 He was on the Board of Trustees at St. Vincent’s Medical Center, where he helped to plan the St. Elizabeth Seton Wing and to oversee construction of the Cardinal Cooke Pavilion. The medical center honored Fitz Patrick by presenting him with the St. Elizabeth Seton award and by naming a wing of the hospital after him in 1979.19 Fitz Patrick served as president of the Staten Island Rotary Club and was named a “Rotary Giant” in 1996.20 Fitz Patrick was a trustee at the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences, and he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Staten Island Chapter of the American Red Cross, the Board of Mangers of the Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts of America, Community Planning Board Number 3 and the Hospital Advisory Committee of USPHS Hospital. James L.G. Fitz Patrick married Helen M. Kenny on August 19, 1930.22 Helen Kenny Fitz Patrick died in 1985, and James L. G. Fitz Patrick married Mary Murray Smith in 1992. The Smith and Fitz Patrick families had known each other since the 1940’s. Mary Murray Smith Fitz Patrick predeceased James L.G. Fitz Patrick in 1998. Fitz Patrick had four stepchildren from his second marriage - Harold Smith, Robert Smith, Stephen Smith, and Mary Ellen Smith. James L.G. Fitz Patrick died on March 22, 1998, at the age of 91.