TWA — Local services in New York

We meant only to dine—Taiwanese plates in the city, the kind of meal that persuades you to linger. We lingered twenty minutes too long. The jetway doors closed. Destination postponed. And in that tiny calamity lay a gift: an unscripted assignment to bed down inside Eero Saarinen’s white-winged dream at Idlewild—now JFK—the newly reborn TWA Hotel.

Step through the red-carpet flight tube and you step through time. The headhouse, a gull in mid-takeoff, is the great stage; the Sunken Lounge its orchestra pit. The famous split-flap board chatters overhead as if beat reporters still filed on clacking Underwoods and the Beatles were due any minute. (In ’65, crowds really did pack this very pit to watch them arrive.) Recline on the chili-pepper red and you’ll feel the building’s original optimism return, a kind of jet-age civic pride poured in concrete curves.

Past and present are stitched with a wink. An elevator button offers “1960s TWA HOTEL” or “present day JetBlue.” Press the former and you’re deposited beneath Saarinen’s hovering shells, where a Swiss Vulcain clock ticks the room like a metronome and the Solari board flicks out love letters to departure. Press the latter and you’re in Terminal 5 in a few strides—the old tubes still ferrying you between eras.

Our unscheduled layover became a study in details. Light switches and bath drains, door keys and dial phones—each chosen with a zealot’s eye for period truth. In the guest rooms, Stonehill Taylor keeps the language fluent: walnut tambour walls, Saarinen womb chairs and tulip tables, floor-to-ceiling glass framing either the flight center or the runway pageant outside. The spectacle is silent; seven panes of 4½-inch glazing hush the engines to a whisper—if only the same could be said for the coughs and sniffles from the room next door.

History, here, has a bartender. We took prop-fan martinis inside “Connie,” a 1958 Lockheed Constellation parked on the tarmac, its cabin restored with museum-grade devotion—murals, cockpit, the works. It’s a bar with a logbook, and it pours like a travel poster.

There is more theater upstairs: a rooftop infinity pool steaming in winter like a pool-cuzzi, leveled to the runway horizon so that departures seem to skim your glass. The scenes play on, night and day, season to season.

Hungry? Jean-Georges revives the Paris Café on the mezzanine—a mid-century clubhouse reimagined for today, priced sanely, the sort of room where a late salad and a strong coffee can repair a long travel day. In the lobby and mezzanine, museum exhibits curated with the New-York Historical Society thread uniforms, posters, and ephemera through the circulation, so your stroll becomes a syllabus in the golden age.

For the record—and because a Life reader asks for numbers—this is no boutique diorama. MCR/Morse and Beyer Blinder Belle turned a 1962 landmark into a 512-room hotel, flanked by two new wings, a 50,000-square-foot events center, a year-round pool, and, in a flourish of very American ambition, “the world’s biggest hotel gym,” a 10,000-square-foot temple to jet-lag penance.

But statistics don’t explain why we stayed up too late at the circular bar, talking with strangers like fellow passengers on a night flight. They don’t capture the way the chili-pepper carpet warms the light, or how the penny-tile benches coax you to linger, or how a building can make you feel—Saarinen’s word—uplifted. They don’t tell you that a missed plane, with the right address, can become an arrival.

The TWA Hotel is less a place to sleep than a memory machine. You’re not merely near the airport; you are inside an era, surrounded by a cast that includes your own nostalgia. The rooms are beautiful and exacting, the public spaces cinematic. You feel, quite literally, as if you’ve wandered onto a set—only this one has a direct connection...

June 2025. This hotel has always been a designation that my husband always wanted to go especially working in the travel industry. Starting with the rooms, they were dirty and a collection of pistachios on the floor that served no purpose. General maintenance was non-existent, dirty grout, a tattered rug, the quilted batting in the coverlet was wadded beyond repair. The rusting bar design feature needed to be refurbished. Service was nonexistent except for the check in, restaurants and bars. The Connie Bar in the plane is in much need of general maintenance too, from upholstery repair to the vintage steps entering the plane are looking ancient, you can see straight through to the ground in several areas. They have a gym and the smell was there chronically for both visits. I know there are many cleaners that can remedy that. The location and how to get there is a little challenging but it is signed well in the airport. Terminal 5 is wonderful and I am glad it was saved to live on, other NYC treasure's didn't make it. Concerns with the Terminal 5 are pretty much the same. It is being allowed to just exist with no regular maintenance and collections of dust, dirt and grout. TLC is an understatement. It's time to throw in a lifeline to this beauty and bring her back along with more things to make the 500. a night palatable. A contental breakfast would be a basic start, room service and more food choices. There is plenty of vacant food stands available. I think the rent must be crazy high making it impossible for success. To the owner or owners of this vintage building and hotel it's time to hear your customers. Your unwillingness to make it right with a credit for future stays or monetarily speaks volumes to your goals. No that's just heartbreaking. She needs to be returned to the gem she was meant to be when she became more...

As a hospitality professional I feel overwhelming compelled to leave a fair and objective review of the TWA hotel & pool. The good: the hotel is true in aesthetic and period details of its heyday. The music, overall design, cocktail bar in the plane, retro cars, signage & posters are all undeniably cool if you want to step back in time. Sadly that’s where the fun ends. There is not a lot of value in actually staying at the hotel. You will be charged to gain entry to the pool area just like anyone else off the street. I don’t think that is the worst part of the experience however. It’s probably the fact that after you spend $600 for a night at the TWA hotel you will also be charged $65 for a family of 5 just to enjoy the pool for exactly one hour and 45min. Pool staff and management will notify you of your slot ending via blow horn. Because nothing screams luxury like getting herded off the pool deck prior to the next herd of guests waiting to enter. So if you must swing by the TWA hotel don’t bother to spend the night. Pretend you are watching a 60s flick like catch me if you can, take a dip in pool and leave. Sad to see that this is what passes as hospitality or adequate service nowadays in NYC. I’d suggest some type of prioritization for hotel guests but it’s obvious that there are no 1st class accommodations available at the TWA hotel or pool. I truly hope that ownership or management make some significant changes in the future. It’s truly a shame because this property has the potential to be something special...