TWA Flight Center
The TWA Flight Center, also known as the Trans World Flight Center, is an airport terminal and hotel complex at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York City. The original terminal building, or head house, operated as a terminal from 1962 to 2001 and was adaptively repurposed in 2017 as part of the TWA Hotel. The head house is partially encircled by a replacement terminal building completed in 2008, and flanked by two buildings added for the hotel. The replacement terminal is home to JetBlue's JFK operations. The head house and terminal are collectively known as Terminal 5 or T5.
Location
Terminal 5, John F. Kennedy International Airport
New York City, United States
17.6 acres (7.1 ha)
1915, 1916
September 7, 2005
July 19, 1994
The TWA Flight Center was designed for Trans World Airlines by Eero Saarinen and Associates starting in 1956. It was erected between 1959 and 1962, and it operated as an air terminal until 2001. It has a prominent wing-shaped thin shell roof supported by four Y-shaped piers. An open three-level space with tall windows originally offered views of departing and arriving jets. Two tube-shaped red-carpeted departure-arrival corridors extended outward from the terminal, connecting to the gates; these would be demolished for the 2008 addition. Roche-Dinkeloo, a successor firm to Saarinen's company, designed an expansion in 1970. Its design received much critical acclaim; the interior and the exterior of the head house became New York City designated landmarks in 1994, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.
The encircling Terminal 5 addition, designed by Gensler, was built between 2005 and 2008. It consists of the 26 active gates at Terminal 5, as well as numerous restaurants and stores. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), which operates JFK Airport, had once intended the original structure as an entrance to the replacement terminal. That plan did not happen, and the TWA Hotel was instead constructed between 2015 and 2019; its development entailed renovating the disused head house and adding two adjacent buildings.
