TWA Terminal Redux

The TWA Terminal was opened in 1962 at Idlewild International Airport. Eero Saarinen designed the structure terminal to reveal the beauty of thin-shell construction of a concrete shell elegantly supported by legs diminishing at the corners. Saarinen died in 1962, but his wife honored his dream as an ode to the modern world.

The sparse interior aimed at moving people through the space to jetliners transporting passengers to international destinations.

TWA was a jewel of the Howard Hughes empire and flights from JFK connected The New World with the Old World's Imperial Capitols of London, Paris, and Madrid, and Rome as well as scores of cities in both hemispheres.

TWA jets wandered around the Earth at sub-sonic speeds day and night.

Pilots were gods of the sky.

Stewardesses were epitome of coolness.

The terminal glorified birth of a new era.

Travel had reached the edge of space.

We should have touched the stars.

The 1970s ended the dream

The airline died in 2001.

The TWA was closed for good.

A monument to a future which never was saved from demolition as a city landmark.

A ghost seemingly doomed to the abyss of slow decay, however Jet Blue and investors were allowed to develop a hotel in the abandoned terminal to replace the closed Ramada Inn at the entrance to JFK.

The TWA Hotel opened in 2019.

It is the only hotel operating inside the aeroport.

It's not the 1960s.

But the dream of Saarinen lives on.