Wednesday, December 1, 2021- FROM A VACANT AREA TO THE WORLD’S BUSIEST AIRPORT
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2021
The 534th Edition
JOHN F. KENNEDY
INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
JFK
STEPHEN BLANK
John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
Stephen Blank
We wrote about LaGuardia a while ago. Time for catch up on JFK. JFK is the busiest international air passenger gateway into North America (the three busiest international passenger gateways are Dubai International, Amsterdam Schiphol and London Heathrow), the 20th-busiest airport in the world, and the sixth-busiest airport in the United States, handling over 62.5 million passengers in 2019. More than 90 airlines operate from the airport, with nonstop or direct flights to destinations in six continents.
Beginnings – On the golf course
JFK sits on an old recreation spot for residents of Long Island, particularly for the wealthy, known as Idlewild. In November 1929, 300 acres of Jamaica Bay meadow land was assembled for the developer Nathan D. Shapiro, who owned the Idlewild Beach Company. He planned a colony of year-round houses overlooking the bay with two golf courses behind them which he expect to finish by early July 1930.
As war intensified in 1941, Mayor La Guardia said that New York was not adequately equipped with airfields either for the war or after the war. La Guardia said the federal government was “very anxious” to get on with construction at a third airport facility, after the newly opened La Guardia and Floyd Bennett Field which had been taken over by the Navy, and that Idlewild looked like “the most favorable both as to location and layout.” By the end of the year, title to the property had been conveyed to the city, the City Council had allocated $750,000 for payment to the 200 or so property owners on the land who had been notified to leave. “The work of clearing the property,” said the presiding justice in the case, “will be done by Park Commissioner [Robert] Moses. He will be in there with shovels and excavators, and you know he does things fast. You will have from two to four weeks to move.”
The airport opened with its first flight on July 1, 1948. The Port Authority canceled foreign airlines’ permits to use LaGuardia, forcing them to move to Idlewild during the next couple of years.
No one could agree on what to call the airport. In 1941, a resolution had been put before the City Council to call it the Colin Kelly Airport after an Air Force captain of World War II, but nothing came of it. Two years later, Mayor LaGuardia declared it “Idlewild,” but the City Council said he couldn’t unilaterally name it and voted to call it the Major General Alexander E. Anderson Airport, after a World War I and II hero. Nonetheless, the airport was still called “Idlewild”. In March 1948, the City Council changed its official name to New York International Airport, Anderson Field, but the common name remained “Idlewild” until December 24, 1963 when it was renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport a month and two days after the assassination of President Kennedy.
Jets – Canada first Canada’s Avro Jetliner was the first jet airliner to land at Idlewild on April 16, 1950 on a well-publicized tour to New York City, to coincide with a Society of Automotive Engineers convention. Only in May 1957 did another jet fly in, a French Sud Aviation Caravelle prototype. US airlines began scheduling jets to Idlewild in 1958–59. (LaGuardia did not get jets until 1964.) Much of Newark’s traffic moved to Idlewild (which averaged 242 daily airline operations in 1952) when Newark closed in February 1952. L-1049 Constellations and DC-7s appeared between 1951 and 1953 and did not use LaGuardia for their first several years, bringing more traffic to Idlewild. By 1954, Idlewild had the highest volume of international air traffic of any airport globally.
Terminals – Many The Port of New York Authority originally planned a single 55-gate terminal, but the major airlines weren’t pleased, arguing that the terminal would be far too small for future traffic. A new plan would allow each major airline to be given space to develop its own terminal. This scheme made construction more practical, made terminals more navigable, and introduced incentives for airlines to compete with each other for the best design. The revised plan was approved by airlines in 1955; seven terminals were initially planned involving some of the biggest architectural names in the country.
The International Arrivals Building, designed by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, was the first new terminal at the airport, opening in December 1957.
American Airlines opened Terminal 8 in February 1960 designed by Kahn and Jacobs with a 317-foot stained-glass facade designed by Robert Sowers, then the largest stained-glass installation in the world.
Pan American World Airways opened the Worldport in 1960, designed by Tippetts-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton that featured a large, elliptical roof suspended by 32 sets of radial posts and cables; the roof extended 114 feet (35 m) beyond the base of the terminal to cover the passenger loading area. It was one of the first airline terminals in the world to feature Jetways that connected to the terminal and that could be moved to provide an easy walkway for passengers from the terminal to a docked aircraft.
National Airlines’ Sundrome by I.M. Pei featured an all-glass facade and a clear-span interior achieved by glass mullions with glass walls suspended from them. Built in 1970, it was one of the first such designs in the U.S.
I.M. Pei’s Terminal 6
Trans World Airlines opened the TWA Flight Center in 1962, designed by Eero Saarinen with a distinctive winged-bird shape.
Cargo – Much
Those of us who frequent JFK as passengers may be surprised that it is also a very important cargo port.
Indeed, when ranked by the value of shipments passing through it (as opposed to volume), JFK is the third or fourth ranking freight gateway in the United States (after the Port of Los Angeles, the Port of Long Beach and the Port of New York and New Jersey), and the number one international air freight gateway in the United States. In fact, while most of the nation’s airports, seaports and border crossings saw their trade plummet, particularly in April and May 2019, JFK’s trade did the opposite. For one month, April 2019, JFK was the nation’s leading port, ahead of perennial No. 1 Port of Los Angeles.
Why did it briefly occupy the top spot?
The reason was gold. With transatlantic passenger flights shut down because of the coronavirus spreading across the world and with rising uncertainty in the U.S. and global economies, the price of gold rose at the same time the need to have physical gold in New York, the world’s financial capital, ratcheted up to meet demand. In May 2019, gold was actually the top US import, ahead of oil, passenger vehicles, cell phones and computers. In 2019, $25.1 billion in gold was imported into JFK, 74% of the country total of $33.8 billion. More than $16 billion of the U.S. total, just under half, was in the months of April and May alone.
We travelers are pretty lucky. We can get to LGA and JFK without bridges or tunnels, and we can enjoy nonstops to most (or at least many) of the places we want to go. But remember what Elaine Benes said, “No one has ever beaten the Van Wyck!” Up in the air, senior birdmen.
Thanks for reading.
Stephen Blank
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