By Matt Chaban 6/01/12 6:37pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

8 Photos

Yesterday, JetBlue unveiled T5i, a new expansion to its terminal at JFK that adds six gates for international flights.

So That’s Why They Tore Down the Sundrome: JetBlue’s New T5i and Why JFK Now Has Only Six Terminals

JFK will now have two missing terminals.

As The Observer and others have been lamenting for some time now, the day has passed for Jet Age JFK. Terminal 3 is being demolished to make way for more airplane parking to accommodate Delta’s expansion of Terminal 4. And now we learn that the same fate has befallen the Sundrome, which was unceremoniously destroyed last year, with no immediate plans for replacement. This leaves only the still-shuttered Terminal 5 as the last remnant of midcentury JFK.

And yet while a piece of architectural history may be gone, it could mean smoother flying for those in and out of JFK, which is really what the airport is all about. Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/10/11 9:32am

Making History

Welcome aboard, ladies and gentlemen.

Take Off for the TWA Terminal This Weekend at Open House New York

A great deal of attention has been paid lately to vintage JFK. Thanks to that lovely show Pan Am, we got a glimpse of what Terminal 3 looked like in its glory days, rather than the leaking mess it had become in recent years. It was recently torn down so Delta, which is expanding Terminal 4, could have more space to park planes—no, not a new terminal, just a bare strip of tarmac, a glorified plane parking lot. (Maybe with the airport so congested, that’s for the best. Another terminal would mean more planes everyday, wouldn’t it?)

Then there is the still stately Terminal 6, JetBlue’s home before it took over the new Terminal 5 encircling Eero Saarinen’s revered TWA Terminal. Terminal 6 is also coming down, a soaring glass pane and concrete strut at a time. There has been much handwringing over this of late, thanks in no small part to the appearance of Christina Ricci in a blue stewardess’ garb, but as is often the case with old buildings, it is too little, too late. And we don’t even yet know what is replacing the thing.

That leaves us with the TWA Terminal and the TWA Terminal alone. Read More

By Matt Chaban 2/07/11 5:58pm

Checking in

Takeoff! City’s Coolest Hotel Landing at… JFK?

One of the best buildings in New York has lain dormant for a decade, with no one really wanting anything to do with it. That would be the old TWA terminal designed by renowned architect Eero Saarinen. The gull-in-flight concrete structure is an international icon, but it lost its purpose when the airline went bankrupt Read More