New York City! Kind of. I went there, but did not leave the airport, JFK Airport. I spent three days at the airport, never left. I have no interest in Broadway shows. I have no interest in the Yankees or Mets. I have no interest in going to the top of the Empire State Building, nor the Statue of Liberty, or shopping on Madison Avenue. All those are for losers. I flew to JFK, got my bag in baggage claim, took the Air Train to Terminal 5, and found the Jet Blue section. From the baggage claim area at Jet Blue, I took an elevator and popped into a long red corridor to the TWA Hotel.
When TWA died off in the late 1990s, after one of their planes blew up over the Long Island Sound, their terminal at JFK was vacant for almost 15 years. Jet Blue purchased the terminal for $300 million and restored it to its old TWA luster from the 1950s and 1960s. Staying at the TWA Hotel is to go back in time to the late 50s or early 60s. Everything in the hotel is red and white. The cars parked out the front entrance are classically restored cars from the late 50s or early 60s.
My hotel room overlooked the runway and across the way was the Emirates gate where I watched Emirates Airbus 390s arrive. Other airplanes I watched from my hotel room belonged to Singapore Air, Virgin Atlantic, Etihad, Air India, Kenya Airways, etc. I could have stayed in my hotel room the entire time plane-spotting. My room was furnished with a rotary telephone and a Life magazine from May 13, 1966 (35 cents).
I dropped off my suitcase and immediately went down to the so-called cocktail lounge. Just outside the hotel, still on hotel grounds, on a mock runway is a 1958 Lockheed Constellation! The lounge is called "The Connie." The plane, recovered from a trash heap, has been restored to 1958 form and serves as one of the hotel's cocktail lounges. On board, you can sit in an airplane seat, or the lounge in the back of the airplane. Order an Old Fashioned, a Gin and Tonic, or a Sprite!
The restored airplane requires you to go up mobile boarding stairs. Ever been on a 1958 luxury airplane? Well, I have now. Watch those old airplane movies and now be able to empathize with all the rich passengers who bring their drama to 35,000 feet.
Oh, the plusses and minuses of the TWA Hotel. The plusses include the nostalgia and luxury. It is fabulously restored to 1960s form. The restaurants within are much maligned by reviewers, but I thought they were fantastic. The gym in the basement is large. The views of the international runway are magnificent. Attention to detail, including the rotary payphones and the old fashioned beauty parlor is terrific. The minuses? There is a double whammy...it is New York and it is an airport, thus the rooms are expensive. The rooms are small, but if you are alone, they are large enough with great views. Again, it is New York and half the population is homeless or addicted to drugs and occasionally one of these Mamdani deviants makes it into the hotel.
Aviation enthusiasts and plane spotters will love this place. The TWA Hotel is a slice of Americana from an era when airplane travel was a luxury and it was treated as a luxury by a still proud population. The Spirit Airlines culture was not yet infesting airports, and T-Shirts and flipflops were nowhere to be found. Yesteryear...gone forever? Who knows? Oh, the stewardesses...they were all fit and trim, and real dolls. Take a look at their TWA uniforms which are on proud display just over the lobby.
