TWA Hotel at John F Kennedy Airport

The TWA Hotel at JFK Airport made its appearance in 2019, and I have been really late to the game in making my way to it for all these years. The opportunity finally presented itself when I had to drop someone off for a JetBlue flight at Terminal 5 at JFK Airport, and I quickly ran across to visit it, though I did not unfortunately have time to stop by the much Instagrammed famous bar in a plane.

Terminal 5 has signs that direct to TWA Hotel which lead to an elevator that looks like this –

Stepping out into the other side of the elevator is truly like stepping into a time machine! It felt like I was walking onto the set of a period film with everything looking like it was straight out of the 1960s.

This space used to originally be the TWA flight center, and the look and feel of it has been preserved thought a lot of the elements have been replaced.

There’s a whole section dedicated to Connie, a Lockheed Constellation airplane from 1958 that now houses the bar that I never made it in to. The wall explains that TWA owner Howard Hughes – who was played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie The Aviator – buys Lockheed’s entire production of its Constellation (“Connie”) airplanes to box out PanAm Airways! Connie at one time was Air Force One for President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

There’s a fabulous how it started, how it’s going type of chart showing how much we have evolved from 1962 –

The space is a treasure trove of period pieces, including cars, vending machines, luggage carriers and even suitcases from the ’60s.

I loved a gallery of posters they had with all the destinations that TWA flew to –

All in all this was a fabuous 15 minutes spent at the TWA Hotel, though I need to spend more time there to do it justice. Perhaps an overnighter given it is the only functioning hotel at JFK Airport.

#gottalovenewyork