A Mid Century Icon – A Piece of Art
The TWA Flight Center, also known as the Trans World Flight Center, is an airport terminal and hotel complex at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK). It had been closed since 2001 after TWA went out of business. And today, this striking Jet Age marvel designed by Eero Saarinen has been transformed into the TWA Hotel, with hundreds of rooms and modern amenities.
The hotel’s debut is the culmination of more than two decades of work by preservationists, architects, and elected officials to protect Saarinen’s midcentury icon, at the same time also finding a new use for it. This building, a New York City landmark, and landing on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005, was open for 39 years and when the terminal stopped operations, the fate of Saarinen’s futuristic structure was uncertain.
In April 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported that JetBlue and its partner, a developer were negotiating to build a hotel and in July 2015, the New York Governor Andrew Cuomo confirmed that the Saarinen building would be converted into a new on-site hotel for the airport’s passengers!
The developer wanted to keep the vintage vibe of the space alive, and they brought the building back to exactly as it was in 1962! As Tyler Morse from MCR/Morse Development said, “It is one of the most special buildings in the United States, and the ability to bring it back to life is really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”
All TWA Retirees, including my husband and I, were really excited about the prospect of revisiting the TWA terminal at JFK and to walk down memory lane! Some had spent many hours a day working there and crew members were in and out of this terminal and a revisit was going to be nostalgic for us but at the same time very exciting!
In May 2019, the hotel officially opened and an invitation was extended to all International TWA Retirees Club members to attend seminars and a Gala dinner to be organized in October 2019. What an opportunity and we registered to attend!
We were lucky to be the first few to reserve a room with a runway view and it was just as we imagined it. The entire hotel is themed with vintage TWA nostalgia and the rooms have TWA pencils and writing pads, TWA glasses which we once possessed in 1967 and carried with us around the world! At the TWA shop, one could buy all these memorabilia, at a price of course!
The lobby has a taste of the “golden age” of jet travel, and the reality of how most people experience travel today. Most of the lobby is taken up by the Sunken Lounge, now a cocktail bar and with a very 1960 vibe! Crowds gathered here to watch the Beatles arrive in the United States in 1965! You can hear the music in the back ground “Please Please Me” by the Beatles! Siggi and I have travelled backwards, all the way to late 1968 when we first met in Dar-es-Salaam both working with TWA!
Up the winding staircase, is the Paris Cafe!
We met up with Siggi’s colleagues from Tel Aviv, Zurich, Paris and New York and had a Gin Martini in the sun-drenched Sunken Lounge! It just takes you back in time and elicits delight and kindles old hopes!
We had our first evening meal at the Paris Cafe where the celebrated chef Jean-Georges helms the historic restaurant. Slow service at times but definitely worth the while and as they say “Time flies when you are having fun” and no one complained about waiting for their meal!
On top of one of the towers is a new swimming pool with an “infinity” edge that looks out on the tarmac and its spectacle of takeoffs and landings. What a creation - a traditional pool in the summer, while in winter it will turn into a pool-cuzzi, with temperatures of up to 100 degrees. This infinity edge pool is inspired by Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Cap d’Antibes, France!
Siggi could not wait to ‘Meet Connie’ L-1649A that he had worked on in Zurich, Switzerland in 1962 and now to step back in time on this 1958 Constellation airplane converted to a fully functioning bar and lounge serving martinis with first class atmosphere is fascinating. The cockpit and forward section of the aircraft is fully restored and much like a museum exhibit!
Our Gala Dinner was held in the iconic TWA Flight Center that can host up to 1.600 people with 50,000 sq. ft. of space.
The display of vintage airline uniforms and suitcases, its flip-board display sign announcing arrivals and departures which are entirely fictional, and with visitors snapping selfies in the Ambassador’s Club, the hotel gives one an atmosphere and scenes a little like a “Mad Men” TV series!
This retro hotel brought back memories of what opportunities TWA offered so many of us to explore the world with glamour, elegance, excitement, and selling a fantasy of what flying was all about. I was privileged being the wife of a TWA employee for over 30 years and remember the glamour of air travel in the golden age of the 60’s and 70’s! Traveling on TWA first class from any city in Europe to New York actually felt like one big cocktail party!
Three full days of having relived the brilliant past of TWA, it was hard to step out to reality and to face today’s world again without being nostalgic for that wonderful era we had experienced and left in the past!