At TWA Hotel at New York’s JFK airport, the golden age of aviation is alive and well
- The hotel breathes new life into the iconic Eero Saarinen-designed TWA Flight Center terminal
- Modernist furniture and a Mad Men-style devotion to the era lend elegance to the nostalgia
What’s the story? The once futuristic TWA Flight Center, at New York’s JFK Airport, commissioned by the now-defunct Howard Hughes-owned Trans World Airlines and designed by Eero Saarinen in the golden age of air travel, has reopened as a hotel after 18 years of dormancy.
How does it look? With two “wings” forming the roof, tubular walkways and stark white mixed with bright red throughout, it’s Instagram heaven. Or hell, depending on how you feel about wannabe models and Insta-husbands posing and snapping at every turn. To be fair, it is so photogenic, the former airport terminal featured in Catch Me If You Can, even though the 2002 film portrayed rival airline Pan Am.
So it’s straight out of the Sixties? Well, if you access the hotel via the lift in JFK Terminal 5, the floor button is marked “1960s TWA”. And as you walk along the red-carpeted tunnel leading to the lobby you feel as though you’re passing through a time warp. Saarinen’s modernist Tulip furniture for Knoll is scattered liberally and retro TWA logos are used in abundance, from the servers’ trainers to inside the guest-room safes, which is a cute touch.
Although the hotel edges into museum territory in places (uniformed mannequin displays and vintage cars), Saarinen’s curvaceous design shines, and overall the place manages to embody the glamour of the Mad Men era.
Mad Men, you say – so there’s no shortage of stiff drinks? Funny you should ask, as, apart from the architecture, the bars are the stars. You could do worse than drop in for a martini at The Sunken Lounge, at the heart of the hotel, which has inviting red banquettes and a fun split-flap-display departures board, complete with that yakety, mahjong-tiles-being-shuffled sound flight-information boards used to make.
Vast windows look out onto a “Connie”, a restored Lockheed Constellation, which now houses a cocktail lounge. And if you want to get your head checked by a jumbo jet, a rooftop bar, swimming pool and sun deck overlook the runway.