The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
The hotel with Jet Age appeal
until the company went bust in 2001. Since then, the slick, white, futuristic winged structure – one of the first terminals to feature enclosed passenger jetways and baggage carousels – has sat largely empty, a relic of the golden age of air travel.
Today, I spend more time than any human being should at JFK. And there is nothing glamorously “jet set” about a job that requires you to pass through its hectic and unlovely halls sometimes twice a day. Not, that is, until now.
This summer, Saarinen’s structure reopened as the TWA Hotel, the airport’s only on-site hotel, with 512 bedrooms, a restaurant by JeanGeorges Vongerichten, a rooftop pool, and eight bars, including one housed in a decommissioned Constellation, an old prop plane from the TWA fleet.
Linked via a lift to Terminal 5, which offers only two buttons/choices: “1960s TWA HOTEL” or “PRESENT DAY JETBLUE” (not a difficult dilemma), the hotel is accessed down one of the building’s original tubelike tunnels, carpeted in bright crimson, the “Chili Pepper Red” that was developed especially for TWA, and is now found all over the hotel in uniforms, upholstery, bathroom products and decorative vintage cars. And, as the tunnel opens out on to the hotel’s central lobby, I defy any visitor, no matter how cranky or jet-lagged, not to be seduced by the space and the light, the soaring glass and concrete curves and the elevated walkways, a cathedral of midcentury design.
Efforts have been made to blend the new with the old. At the row of 10 airline-style desks, guests can check themselves in on a screen, or have a member of staff take care of all that. Bedrooms are housed in two brandnew wings – Saarinen and Hughes – seven-storey structures designed to flatter and not fight with the original. Their corridors are deliciously curved, with thoughtful touches, such as a small floating shelf beside the bedroom door, to set your cocktail down on while you rummage for your keys. Inside, the period pieces – armchair, rotary phone, lamps, brass and mirrored cocktail bar – fuse easily with the modern – flat-screen television, superfast Wi-Fi, electronic blackout shades and windows that block out the sound from the Boeings beyond; the glass is the thickest in the world after the US Embassy in London.
But while the rooms make impressive use of limited space, why linger in them, when downstairs are some of the sexiest public spaces you’ll ever waft about in?
Should I ever strike up a connection with a handsome stranger on an inbound flight, I may seriously suggest a post-flight pit stop here. All the bars and restaurants are open to the public as well as hotel guests, and should you decide you need a shower, a nap, or, um, some privacy, the hotel offers not only overnight stays but also rooms for four, six or 12 hours. Just saying.
Past the serene Reading Room, decked out with Herman Miller furniture, travel guides and coffee table tomes, I find the doorway that takes me out across the Tarmac to Connie, the lovingly renovated 1958 Lockheed Constellation, now serving a retro cocktail menu and bar snacks. The hostess asks if I mind sitting next to a stranger – of course not, it’s an aeroplane – but I’m more than a little put out by the presentation of my fellow “passengers”. Cargo shorts, baseball caps and flip-flops feel out of place in Connie’s elegant interior.
And, unfortunately, the on-board service appeared little better than many latter-day carriers; when, after 30 minutes, I had not yet even been asked for my order, I left, in slight exasperation. A well-made Negroni in the lobby’s Sunken Lounge definitely took the edge off… until my charcuterie plate arrived very slowly indeed, and without bread. And when the bread finally did show up, it was microwaved and was turning hard.
The most important basic, the bed, I could not quibble with. And, after a peaceful sleep, I headed down to the coffee bar opposite check-in, through the vaulted lobby, filled with morning light, and down to the fitness centre.
Housed in the old baggage hall, the state-of-the-art gym is a massive 10,000 sq ft, with its own Peloton and yoga studios, as well as top-of-therange cardio and resistance equipment, TRX ropes and sandbags. Day passes are available to non-guests for $25 (£20) a day, or $35 for the gym and pool, and if you’ve forgotten your trainers, you can even borrow a pair. The long, narrow pool, up on the roof of the Hughes Wing, with views over the runway, is also open and heated year-round, though the appeal of spotting Airbuses is probably quite niche in a sub-zero New York January.
By the time I’ve showered and checked out, the restaurant, JeanGeorges, has stopped serving breakfast, and won’t start serving lunch for another hour, an issue I overheard another guest complaining about. And she has a point: this is an airport hotel, supposedly catering to the inevitably anti-social schedules of travellers, yet there are times of the day in which meals are unavailable, and the last bar closes firmly at 1am. There is also no room service.
At noon, I was shown to a grey leather stool in front of the circular open kitchen in Jean-Georges’ Paris Café, a paean to Saarinen’s interiors aesthetic, all white tables, pastel leathers and curved edges. I had high