TWA Hotel
The modern revival of a mid-century hotel in an unlikely spot
by Patrick JanelleNew York's coolest hotel of the year is located in the least likely place: just outside John F. Kennedy Airport's terminal 5, across the tarmac from a fleet of JetBlue aircraft.
The TWA Hotel is housed in the iconic Eero Saarinen-designed TWA Flight Center—once a hub for chic, mid-century air travelers—that had been sitting empty on the grounds of JFK for nearly twenty years.
A few months ago, I paid a visit to the hotel, an opening that I had been anticipating for a while: very little had been publicized about the look and feel of the property, and I was curious to see how much of the original structure was maintained. I was delighted that, during the renovation over the past two years, extreme care was taken to restore the building and its unique interior structures to their original 1962 state.
The updates, however, have been extensive: the central Saarinen structure, which houses the hotel lobby (guest check-in at the former ticketing counter), has added a fitness center, a reading room stocked with books from the publisher Phaidon, and an Intelligentsia coffee shop. The original food and beverage outlets—the Sunken Bar, Lisbon Lounge, and Paris Cafe—have all been reopened and given new life, the latter by chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. A pair of new, five-story, glass buildings, which flank the central structure, are home to 512 soundproof guest rooms along with an infinity pool that overlooks JetBlue's runway. The next time I forget my passport for a long flight...it might just be on purpose.