New York/TWA - JOURNAL • BRIAN ROSE

TWA Hotel, JFK airport, New York — © Brian Rose

Returning from a week’s vacation in Amsterdam, we visited the newly restored TWA Terminal at JFK airport. At least once, decades ago, I passed through this glorious survivor of the early days of air travel. I remember it then as a bit shabby with numerous visual intrusions grafted onto Aero Saarinen’s flowing architecture. The terminal has now reopened as a hotel connected to JetBlue’s JFK hub.

TWA Hotel, JFK airport, New York — © Brian Rose

The exterior of the terminal has been beautifully preserved, but the dark-windowed hotel structures standing between TWA and the surrounding JetBlue terminal create a claustrophobic space for Saarinen’s sculptural masterpiece, which once stood open to the tarmac and the sky.

TWA Hotel, JFK airport, New York — © Brian Rose

Half of the rooms appear to face JetBlue, and the other face inward toward TWA. Some rooms look out onto the airfield — those are the rooms to get. The architects were obviously trying to make the hotel wings neutral and unobtrusive. They are neutral, but not exactly unobtrusive.

TWA Hotel, JFK airport, New York — © Brian Rose

The curving driveway out front still allows for cars to pick up and drop off in proper 1960s style. Above, my son Brendan, wearing an appropriately themed NASA shirt, and my wife Renee pose before a vintage Lincoln Continental.

TWA was, of course, originally an airport terminal, not a hotel. So, one has to accept the tradeoffs involved. Nevertheless, I could do with fewer theme-y gestures like the uniformed greeters in the main hall and a bank of ’70s era phone booths. The place felt a little under-populated while we were there during lunchtime, and I worry that the hotel will fail to draw enough business. The slender tubes that once led to the TWA gates, now serve as connectors to JetBlue’s terminal. But the entrances are hard to find, and the signage inadequate.

The TWA Terminal is one of the masterpieces of 20th-century architecture. It should probably be a memorial to the golden age of aeronautics instead of a hotel. But if a hotel, drop the kitsch and run it like a real place.

Don’t miss it. It’s well worth a special trip or a detour before or after your next JFK flight.