A historical tour
Apr. 30th, 2024 06:41 amWe have an architect neighbor who likes to lead tours of "historic houses in the neighborhood". This past weekend he instead arranged a tour of the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport, led by one of the hotel staff, and it was surprisingly interesting.
Some time in the 1950's Howard Hughes, owner and mercurial dictator of TWA, saw architect Eero Saarinen's face on the cover of Time magazine, called him up, and said "I'd like you to design an airport terminal in New York City," adding the magic words "Price is no object." Saarinen took the job and designed what was then called the TWA Terminal, intended to evoke thoughts of a bird in flight. The whole roof is curves of thin-shelled concrete, with no interior columns holding it up, and lots of slanted glass windows between the roof and the floor. The building was finished and opened in 1962, shortly after Saarinen died. When tourists came to Queens for the 1964 World's Fair, which was also on a "flight" theme (Hughes was a loony, but no dummy), many of them came through this terminal. When the Beatles came to the US to play Shea Stadium and the Ed Sullivan Show, they flew TWA and came through this terminal. Parts of the DiCaprio 2002 movie "Catch Me If You Can" were filmed in this terminal. Then in the aftermath of 9/11, TWA went bankrupt and its properties were sold to American Airlines. AA had no interest in keeping open this old terminal so closely associated with the now-defunct TWA, so they abandoned it.
But somebody (this wasn't made clear in the tour) was interested enough in it to push for the building to get landmark status, and then to shop around to various hotel chains the idea of restoring it as a retro-chic hotel lobby, an ode to a time when air travel was glamorous and luxurious. They found somebody interested, repaired what was broken, built two adjacent buildings off the two "wings" for the actual hotel rooms, and opened a few years ago. Much of the building has been restored to look either as it did in 1962, or as it could have looked in 1962 (e.g. they've repurposed a storage room as a ballroom, with furniture and decor appropriate to the period).
The original flight board (the kind with the number-and-letter cards that flip over with a clackety sound until they reach what they're supposed to say) was restored by the Italian company that made it originally, and now presents a fictitious list of upcoming departing flights to romantic destinations around the world, updated realistically from minute to minute. What are now hotel check-in desks look like airport check-in desks of the 1960's. There's a display of TWA flight-attendant uniforms over the decades, walls of photos of famous people flying TWA from the 1930's-1960's, walls of 1960's TWA-ad artwork, a 1960's Lincoln Continental convertible and a VW Microbus "parked" in front, a 1960's music playlist over the loudspeakers, and a four-propeller-engine, three-tailed Constellation airliner "parked" just out back and converted into a cocktail lounge that you enter through one of those rolling staircases.
Of course the tour guide was a hotel employee, whose job was to promote the hotel and how you can rent these various spaces for weddings, proms, etc. The observation area no longer looks out directly on the runways, because the JetBlue terminal is in the way now, but if you ever fly JetBlue into JFK, there's a red-carpeted tunnel/passageway from the terminal straight into the TWA hotel lobby, and you can check it out for yourself.

Some time in the 1950's Howard Hughes, owner and mercurial dictator of TWA, saw architect Eero Saarinen's face on the cover of Time magazine, called him up, and said "I'd like you to design an airport terminal in New York City," adding the magic words "Price is no object." Saarinen took the job and designed what was then called the TWA Terminal, intended to evoke thoughts of a bird in flight. The whole roof is curves of thin-shelled concrete, with no interior columns holding it up, and lots of slanted glass windows between the roof and the floor. The building was finished and opened in 1962, shortly after Saarinen died. When tourists came to Queens for the 1964 World's Fair, which was also on a "flight" theme (Hughes was a loony, but no dummy), many of them came through this terminal. When the Beatles came to the US to play Shea Stadium and the Ed Sullivan Show, they flew TWA and came through this terminal. Parts of the DiCaprio 2002 movie "Catch Me If You Can" were filmed in this terminal. Then in the aftermath of 9/11, TWA went bankrupt and its properties were sold to American Airlines. AA had no interest in keeping open this old terminal so closely associated with the now-defunct TWA, so they abandoned it.
But somebody (this wasn't made clear in the tour) was interested enough in it to push for the building to get landmark status, and then to shop around to various hotel chains the idea of restoring it as a retro-chic hotel lobby, an ode to a time when air travel was glamorous and luxurious. They found somebody interested, repaired what was broken, built two adjacent buildings off the two "wings" for the actual hotel rooms, and opened a few years ago. Much of the building has been restored to look either as it did in 1962, or as it could have looked in 1962 (e.g. they've repurposed a storage room as a ballroom, with furniture and decor appropriate to the period).
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The original flight board (the kind with the number-and-letter cards that flip over with a clackety sound until they reach what they're supposed to say) was restored by the Italian company that made it originally, and now presents a fictitious list of upcoming departing flights to romantic destinations around the world, updated realistically from minute to minute. What are now hotel check-in desks look like airport check-in desks of the 1960's. There's a display of TWA flight-attendant uniforms over the decades, walls of photos of famous people flying TWA from the 1930's-1960's, walls of 1960's TWA-ad artwork, a 1960's Lincoln Continental convertible and a VW Microbus "parked" in front, a 1960's music playlist over the loudspeakers, and a four-propeller-engine, three-tailed Constellation airliner "parked" just out back and converted into a cocktail lounge that you enter through one of those rolling staircases.
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Of course the tour guide was a hotel employee, whose job was to promote the hotel and how you can rent these various spaces for weddings, proms, etc. The observation area no longer looks out directly on the runways, because the JetBlue terminal is in the way now, but if you ever fly JetBlue into JFK, there's a red-carpeted tunnel/passageway from the terminal straight into the TWA hotel lobby, and you can check it out for yourself.
