The rise, fall, and rebirth of the TWA Terminal mirrors the that of the commercial aviation industry at large. In 1956, when TWA, under the ownership of Howard Hughes, commissioned a terminal from Edward Saarinen, the Finnish-American architect behind the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the era romanticized as the “Golden Age of Flying” was in full swing, as were Lockheed Constellations, propliners with a capacity of less than 100 passengers. The much larger Boeing 707 came onto the scene in 1958. In 1970—eight years after the Terminal’s completion, and nine years after Saarinen’s death—Boeing launched its mammoth wide-body 747, effectively rendering its smaller predecessors, and Saarinen’s creation, obsolete.
The inside of the TWA hotel (the original terminal was painstakingly restored)
Enormous new planes brought with them passenger levels unforeseen in Saarinen’s era, and the airport heaved under the added pressure. When the TWA Terminal opened in 1962, 11.5 million people passed through New York International Airport (also known colloquially as “Idlewild” until it was renamed in 1963 after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination). Thirty years later, in 1992, that number had ballooned to more than 25 million.
As the Port Authority that operated the airport considered ways to expand JFK in the ’90s, there was talk of demolishing the TWA Terminal , but the agency was eventually dissuaded of that rather unpopular idea. The building’s fate was cemented in 1994, when it became a New York City landmark. In a column later that year, the late Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp praised the TWA Terminal as “the most dynamically modeled space of its era,” yet trumpeted the “dire need of design modifications.” In conclusion, he wrote, “T.W.A. sits aloof amid the architectural hodgepodge of J.F.K.’s Terminal City, like a bird that has lost its flock.”
By 2001, the Terminal, which closed after TWA went bankrupt, was an empty tomb.
Among the nteresting exhibits at the TWA Hotel is this replica of a 1962 living room. Patti gave me a turntable similar to the one pictured for Christmas.
The yellow shag carpet brings back memories
The man tasked with overseeing the restoration of a building he calls “the perfect symbol of post-war optimism, the magic of flight, and the elegance of mid-century modern architecture” was architect Richard Southwick, a partner and the director of historic preservation at Beyer Blinder Belle (BBB), whose efforts helped land the TWA Terminal on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. Southwick and BBB spent nearly a decade developing a preservation plan and guiding the first phase of construction. They used Saarinen’s original working drawings and specifications to rebuild the Sunken Lounge. They repaired and restored the tubes famously featured in the 2002 Leonardo DiCaprio flick Catch Me If You Can. Originally those groovy passageways ushered passengers into the TWA departure halls; now, each leads to one of the two hotel additions and, beyond that, the jetBlue terminal. (An elevator near baggage claim offers only two buttons: “1960s TWA HOTEL” or “PRESENT DAY JETBLUE.”)
One of the groovy tubes that lead to the hotel wings
The idea for a hotel came about early on in the restoration process after other ideas—a museum or a conference center—were deemed impractical.
A real Lockeed Constellation (the “Connie” serves as a cocktail lounge
Enter Tyler Morse of MCR/Morse Development, which was awarded the redevelopment project in 2014. In addition to a fully restored TWA Terminal, there was to be retail and restaurants, 50,000 square feet of meetings and events space, and at least 500 hotel rooms (which can be sold as standard nightly bookings, plus four-, six-, or 12-hour chunks when a guest needs only a nap and a shower).
BBB, hired by MCR as the project architect for the second phase of the restoration as well as the new hotel structures and conference center, turned its attention to the TWA Terminal’s exterior curtain walls, replacing every single one of the 238 original window panels—no two are alike—as well as the neoprene zipper gaskets that hold them into place. Although much of the vaulted core of the lobby and flight tubes had already been restored by this point, the dual single-story wings on either side of the main entrance, which once housed ticket desks, had not. Today, hotel check-in is located to the north, and there’s a food hall to the south, both with desks and lighting that replicate their 1962 predecessors. Even the lobby’s public restrooms mirror Saarinen’s original design, right down to the large, central paper towel dispenser.
One design element that was particularly challenging was the restoration of the Terminal’s ceramic penny tiles, used by Saarinen to clad the floors and swoopy walls. BBB sourced a total of 20 million half-inch-diameter mosaic tiles from China over the course of both phases of the restoration. “They had to match precisely the original Italian tiles in size, color, texture, and aggregate,” Southwick says. “Oftentimes, one or two new tiles had to be placed within a large field of the original—any variation stood out like a sore thumb.”
Meanwhile, Lubrano Ciavarra Architects, a Brooklyn firm, was tasked with designing the 512-room hotel addition. It had to meet the same preservation guidelines imposed on anything new on the site: that it be complementary to, but distinguishable from, Saarinen’s original building.
Floor-to-ceiling glass windows—seven layers of triple-glazed insulated glass weighing 1,740 pounds apiece—overlook either the flight terminal or Runway 4L/22R. Thanks to innovative soundproofing solutions, though, you won’t be awoken by an Airbus A380. It’s hard to believe until you’re actually there, nose pressed against the window like a little kid, watching a meditative parade of airplanes while hearing not so much as a peep from them.
No matter where you stand in the 392,000-square-foot TWA Hotel today, Saarinen is right there with you. For starters, Chili Pepper Red—the fiery hue he developed for the Flight Center—is everywhere, from the upholstery in the Sunken Lounge to the hallway carpeting in the hotel buildings. In the rooms themselves—426 doubles and kings and 86 suites divided among the two new buildings—the NYC-based interior design firm Stonehill Taylor swept in Saarinen Womb chairs and Tulip tables. Beds are comfortable; bathrooms are capacious. A martini station, a mini-bar with retro touches like a mini Etch A Sketch (born in 1960), and vintage rotary phones are additional midcentury touchpoints.
Throughout the hotel are exhibits showcasing info and artifacts from the architect’s life, vintage TWA ads designed by David Klein, retro flight attendant uniforms, and other archival materials curated with assistance from the New York Historical Society. The Paris Café, the Jean-Georges restaurant on the mezzanine, is a sea of custom Saarinen furniture from Knoll.
The TWA logo adorns everything from the side of Connie, a restored Lockheed Constellation that’s been retrofitted as a cocktail bar, to the pencils and notepads in the guest rooms.
Well, I am just about to land in Zurich and see what adventure awaits.
