Updating the Landmark T.W.A. Terminal at J.F.K., This Time as a Hotel
terminal would sit underutilized or empty in perpetuity,” said Nicholas Dagen Bloom, an associate professor who teaches urban planning at the New York Institute of Technology
and the author of “The Metropolitan Airport: JFK International and Modern New York.”
For preservationists and lovers of aviation history, the lack of progress was frustrating.
“He wanted to provide a building in which the human being felt uplifted, important
and full of anticipation,” the architect’s wife, Aline B. Saarinen, told George Scullin in his 1968 book, “International Airport: The Story of Kennedy Airport and U. S. Commercial Aviation.”
On that, Saarinen was successful.
was acquired by American Airlines, the terminal returned to the care of the landlord, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
“Sixty-two was a special year: John Kennedy was president, John Glenn circled the Earth, the space
race was on,” said Mr. Morse, the chief executive of MCR, a hotel owner and developer in New York.
“What they’re selling to the preservationists is that they are sensitive to the importance of the building
and its role in aviation history and global architectural history,” Mr. Bloom said of the challenges, which any developer of a landmark property would face
But Tyler Morse, a hotelier planning the first hotel within walking distance of the terminals
at Kennedy International Airport, is enthusiastically embracing that earlier time.
