Photos show an abandoned JFK airport terminal's transformation from a futuristic, 1960s icon into a new luxury hotel that sits right on the runway
Katie CanalesMay 16, 2019, 19:49 IST
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- JFK Airport's long-abandoned Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight Center in New York has been transformed into a luxury hotel, complete with over 500 rooms, starting at $249 a night.
- The TWA Hotel had a soft opening on May 15, 2019. The project includes countless amenities like restaurants, bars, shopping, and a rooftop infinity pool.
- The budget to transform the TWA terminal amounted to $265 million, making it perhaps one of the most expensive airport hotels in the world.
- But the terminal's past life is significant in its own right.
- The TWA Terminal was built in 1962 and has long been associated with the golden age of flying, known as the "Jet Age," when Trans World Airlines was one of the most iconic airlines in the world and the jet engine was revolutionizing how Americans traveled.
- Here's a look at the terminal in its heyday.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Today, the Trans World Airlines terminal just outside John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York, is now part of the $265 million TWA Hotel project.
Before construction on the hotel project began, the terminal sat vacant and abandoned for 18 years.
Source: Business Insider
But in its mid-century heyday, the TWA Flight Center was known as the "Grand Central of the Jet Age" for its status as the epicenter of the golden age of air travel.
Source: Atlas Obscura
It served as a loading dock for Trans World Airlines, which was one of the most iconic airlines of the 20th century along with Pan American World Airways.
Source: Investopedia
The terminal was built in 1962 during the Jet Age, a period when the introduction of the jet engine to both military and commercial air travel meant that planes became bigger, faster, and cheaper to manufacture.
Source: Britannica and Fortune
The jet engine impacted commercial aviation specifically, ensuring that air travel was no longer a luxury for only the upper class.
Source: Britannica
The construction of the TWA Terminal helped the Jet Age expand around the world — and established New York as a forerunner of the aviation era.
Source: Fortune
in 1963, the New York Jets football team even changed its name from the Titans of New York to reflect the city's role in the revolutionary Jet Age.
Source: Fortune and The New York Jets
The terminal's designer, renowned Finnish-born architect Eero Saarinen, wanted his neo-futuristic structure to mirror the shape of a bird with its wings spread.
Source: Vogue
Inside, the terminal is known for its cavernous arched white ceilings, winding staircases, and mid-century mod style.
Source: Vogue
"We wanted the architecture to reveal the terminal not as a static, enclosed place," Saarinen said in a lecture in 1959, "but as a place of movement and transition."
Source: Places Journal
Glass walls lean away from the building, "as if intended for viewers to imagine looking out from a plane to earth below," according to Arch Daily.
Source: Arch Daily
And the flight schedules were displayed on an electronic board, which was as futuristic as it got back then.
Source: Wired
Saarinen's designs diverged from the typical airline terminal of the time, which was oftentimes more minimal and business-like. His concept evens stands out amongst modern-day designs.
Source: Vogue, Design Observer, Wired
"Today's airports put the people in the middle, away from the light and any sense of exterior orientation," said architecture critic Alexandra Lange in Design Observer in 2011. "The bulk is given over to ticketing and security, baggage and shops, so that people get only a narrow path. It's the opposite at TWA: the perimeter is for humans."
Source: Curbed
For decades, the building was a successful terminal for flyers and remained an architectural marvel.
Source: Atlas Obscura
Later in 1994, the terminal would even be designated a New York City landmark.
Source: Business Insider
But in the 1980s, a shift in management and a series of financial losses at TWA spelt the airline's eventual downfall.
Source: USA Today
As for the terminal, built decades before, it couldn't accommodate the much larger aircraft of modern-day air travel.
Source: Condé Nast Traveler
And the layout of the terminal didn't meet modern-day security guidelines either — installing metal detectors, for example, proved to be too difficult for the space.
Source: Atlas Obscura
The terminal was deemed so unadaptable that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey proposed building a new terminal behind it, though still leaving the main TWA Terminal alone.
But the proposal did include destroying two boarding gates that were attached to the main building by connector tubes, a plan that didn't go over so well with the public.
The main issue was that this new terminal would overshadow the historic TWA building. The proposal also didn't include plans for how the TWA building would be used, and there wasn't any financial backing to renovate it, which it needed at the time.
The potential neglect of the terminal prompted the National Trust for Historic Preservation to include it in its 2003 list of America's 11 Most Endangered Places.
Source: Advisory Council On Historic Preservation and National Trust for Historic Preservation
But the Port Authority's proposal was eventually put through a review process, which resulted in revised designs that limited the new terminal's infringement on the decades-old TWA building and tossed out the demolition plans for the connector tubes.
The terminal was also placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005, further ensuring its preservation — even if just the exterior of it.
Source: Fortune
The new terminal at JFK was completed in 2008. The historic connector tubes were used to connect the TWA building to the new terminal, which was dubbed Terminal 5 upon completion and houses JetBlue Airlines to this day. The cost to build the new JetBlue terminal amounted to $743 million.
Source: Advisory Council On Historic Preservation and The New York Times
On top of having its initial proposal revised, the Port Authority agreed to shell out $19 million needed for repairs on the TWA building.
The renovated TWA Terminal opened to the public for the first time in ten years in 2011, when Open House New York, an annual festival that welcomes the public into typically off-limit design sites, added it to its roster.
Source: Open House New York
In 2015, the historic terminal again hosted throngs of visitors for that year's Open House New York festival.
Source: Condé Nast Traveler
Thousands of history, architecture, and aviation buffs alike flocked to JFK Airport to journey back to the Jet Age for just four hours.
Source: Fortune
Some visitors went all out, even donning vintage flight attendant uniforms.
But 2015 was the last time the building would be open to the public before being transformed into the 500-room TWA Hotel.
Source: Fortune
Construction on the new hotel, led by MCR Development and JetBlue Airways, which operates out of the attached Terminal 5, began in 2016.
Source: Vogue
The hotel rooms won't be in the TWA building, but in two brand new towers built around it.
Source: Business Insider
There will be 40,000 square feet of meeting spaces, six restaurants, eight bars, a spa, and a 10,000-square-foot observation deck. The budget for the project amounted to $265 million.
And a rooftop infinity pool will be available for guests overlooking the runway.
Source: Business Insider
But an interior restoration was completed, though rest assured: much of the terminal will look as it always has. The hotel lobby will exist in this main building.
Source: Vogue
In fact, some of the terminal's most famous amenities have been restored, like its original cocktail bar known as the "Sunken Lounge" decked out in the building's signature red cushioned seats.
Source: Business Insider
Other well-known features like the Lisbon Lounge and the Paris Cafe will also be restored.
Source: Bloomberg
The trademark departures notification board was updated with a new mechanism that allows staff to display the messaging of their choice through an app.
Source: Bloomberg
And a 1958 Lockheed Constellation L-1649A plane, called "Connie," was renovated into a cocktail lounge. It'll sit on the tarmac, where guests can book two-hour reservations and sip cocktails.
Source: Business Insider
The TWA Hotel's soft opening was slated for May 15, with a grand opening planned for this fall.
Source: Business Insider
For $249 a night, the starting rate for a room at the new TWA Hotel, you can travel back to the golden age of air travel.
Source: Business Insider
This is an updated version of an article originally written by Melia Robinson.
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