Updating the Landmark T.W.A. Terminal at J.F.K., This Time as a Hotel<br />terminal would sit underutilized or empty in perpetuity,” said Nicholas Dagen Bloom, an associate professor who teaches urban planning at the New York Institute of Technology<br />and the author of “The Metropolitan Airport: JFK International and Modern New York.”<br />For preservationists and lovers of aviation history, the lack of progress was frustrating.<br />“He wanted to provide a building in which the human being felt uplifted, important<br />and full of anticipation,” the architect’s wife, Aline B. Saarinen, told George Scullin in his 1968 book, “International Airport: The Story of Kennedy Airport and U. S. Commercial Aviation.”<br />On that, Saarinen was successful.<br />was acquired by American Airlines, the terminal returned to the care of the landlord, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.<br />“Sixty-two was a special year: John Kennedy was president, John Glenn circled the Earth, the space<br />race was on,” said Mr. Morse, the chief executive of MCR, a hotel owner and developer in New York.<br />“What they’re selling to the preservationists is that they are sensitive to the importance of the building<br />and its role in aviation history and global architectural history,” Mr. Bloom said of the challenges, which any developer of a landmark property would face<br />But Tyler Morse, a hotelier planning the first hotel within walking distance of the terminals<br />at Kennedy International Airport, is enthusiastically embracing that earlier time.
