Back when I was a little boy, my father used to travel across the USA for business.  At first, that meant he left home on the 1rst of May in our family’s red and white Plymouth Belvedere.  It wasn’t a big deal, since my mom (as was true for most native New Yorkers) had never learned to drive.  It also meant, once I was five years old,  I got to ride my bike 2 miles a few times a week to FC Whitney’s or Bohack’s to pick up stuff we needed to eat.

But, eventually my mom learned to drive- and she stopped letting my dad abscond with the car for an entire month.  (Yes, my father’s trip meant he left on 1 May and returned the weekend before Memorial Day.)  So, he began flying.  At first, he left from LaGuardia airport, using Eastern Airlines.  But, by the time I was 11, he had switched the way he traveled- instead of starting locally, he went clear cross-country and worked his way back.  Which meant I had the opportunity to have my breath stolen away.  Literally.

My dad was departing from the new airport in New York- Idlewild.  On the border between Brooklyn and Queens.  And, we maneuvered through the maze of roads (which still obtain in that airport, although now it’s called JFK).  Until we approached this grand, flowing, white building.

Who knew who Eero Saarinen was?  Not me.  OK- not till I got home that night and looked him up.  But, to see the Transworld Flight Center that had just opened up was simply glorious.  Even now, my heart skips a beat.

It was the most modern thing I had ever seen.  (The World’s Fair, coming in a year or so would be the next chance to experience such wonders.) Even the schedule board looked like something from the Jetson’s- a brand new cartoon show about a family from the future.  Floors were open; eyes flowed from one floor to the next, from one open space to another; so many contours, rises, swivels.  Walking to the gates meant one felt they were getting ready to take off on an intergalactic flight.  (You will have a chance to experience this if you watch the entire YouTube clip below.)

No, I didn’t know that this wonderful design, just like those of Frank Lloyd Wright, meant that with time, a rainfall would mean drips and leaks everywhere.  But, Eero showed the world that form can be the catalyst for a splendid experience.  Of a ride to the future.  Saarinen wanted us to “feel the space”,  make us empathetically imagine our impending flights.

And, while we loved what we saw, and TWA (then called TransWorld Airlines) used this building as it’s background for commercials for decades, architects hated it- it was too modern for their parochial views.

Later on, when I flew overseas, I left from JFK.  Flying on TWA.  (My kids also managed to use that terminal on their first family flights to Paris and Israel, among other places.)  Because that building- back when flying was something grand and not the tedious, cramped experiences provided by the TSA cops and cheap airlines- put everyone in the mood for a wonderful travel experience.

But, TWA folded long ago.  And, that wonderful masterpiece has been vacant for decades.  Except not for much longer.  Sometime this coming year , it will be re-christened as a hotel.  The TWA Hotel. To have its temporary tenants understand the thrill of motion, the feeling of light bending (the way the contours move provides this impression), the rush, the wonder.  For about $ 250 a night.

It needed a lot of work.  Not just because of the leaks.  After all the building employed asbestos, lead paint, among other environmental bugaboos. There are no support columns within the structure (no wonder it flows, right?)- just four giant concrete piers outside the building supporting the roof.  The 186 glass windows (each of a different size) are some 4 inches thick, replete with 7 layers of soundproofing.  Now housing some six restaurants, seven or eight bars.

This idea was the brainchild of Tyler Morse.  As the CEO of MCR Development LLC, the privately help hotel development entity based in Texas, he researched airport hotels, determining what works and what was missing. And, then decided what extra touches would make this hotel more exclusive than one-of-a-kind.

Employees in the hotels will sport TWA uniforms that date back to when the terminal opened (1962). A Chrysler Newport (1962, of course) will be used to bring guests from the terminals to the hotels and back. The telephones will appear as if they date back to 1962 (rotary telephone) that have been retooled as digital communication devices.

You know what else?  A 1956 TWA Constellation will serve as one of the bars.

Right now (yes, right now), we can experience this by a special visit to the 86th floor of the New World Trade Center.  Replete with seats, the appurtenances, the uniforms….  But, even so, I am anticipating my stay at the real hotel.  Drooling…

(Today would have been the day my father returned home from the trip that let me explore this building back on 1 May 1962.)