Monday, June 6, 2022 – A NEW TERMINAL LONG AWAITED
FROM THE ARCHIVES
MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2022
THE 694th EDITION
LA GUARDIA’S
NEW DELTA TERMINAL C
ARTWORK IS GREAT
JUST DON’T EXPECT TO FIND A SEAT
JUDITH BERDY
NEW YORK TIMES
QUEENS MUSEUM
To LaGuardia for less than $2.00? What a bargain (senior fare). I decided to check our the new Delta Terminal C at La Guardia. Today is day 1 for the terminal, the second one to be “completed” in this massive reconstruction.
At Roosevelt Avenue exit the subway station into the massive marketplace of shops from all over the world. A few steps from the station is the platform for the Q70 bus to the airport. No fare needed, just hop of the articulated vehicle and in a few minutes you are on the highway and almost at the airport. As you approach the terminals there is a labrynth of roads and intersections.
Soon we are on the lower arrivals lever, with no signs of what airlines are in the terminal above us. It is still a construction site in many ways. We drive right by the new Delta Terminal C and are dropped off about 1,000 feet farther down the road.
We are in front of the old Delta terminal that is now closed. An attendant is there and tells us to walk back to the new terminal C!! Why is the no stop closer to our destination? The answer is that this is a construction site or even better “they haven’t figured out that yet”. Only in New York.
I walk back to terminal.; with all those passengers hauling their luggage.
Inside the news is better…………sort of.
A vast check-In area, nice and quiet on a Saturday afternoon. Acres of empty kiosks. Not a seat to be found if you need to rest or wait for someone.
By the escalator leading up to the security area is a mural “The Travelers’ Broken Crowd” by Rashid Johnson. The work represent 60 agitated faces of travelers with wide eyes and clenched mouths done in mosaics.
The vast security area is broken by a series of screens with ever changing scenes and graphic above the entire length of the waiting area. Something to keep your mind occupied as you snake your way forward. to our friends at TSA.
MY FAVORITE IS THE LIGHTING SCULPTURES MADE FROM RECYCLES SKYLIGHTS
Virginia Overton, Skylight Gems at New York’s LaGuardia Airport. Photo courtesy of the Queens Museum.
From the NY Times:
Known for her sculptures made from recycled materials that respond directly to architectural spaces, Virginia Overton has installed a dozen large and glowing gem shapes crafted from New York City skylights that dangle at varying heights through a three-story atrium in the arrivals and departures hall.
“I wanted to make something that was indicatively New York,” she said. Overton, who grew up in Nashville, remembers her father’s stories of flying in low over New York on business trips and looking down on buildings with dramatic skylights. These days, in her Brooklyn studio, she often finds herself staring up at the skylights. “When you’re inside a building, that’s where you look up and move from ground to sky, which felt like the right gesture for the airport,” she said.Each of her 12 sculptures contains large panes of old-fashioned security glass set into geometrically faceted metal armatures, up to nine feet long, that Overton dragged from salvage shops and sometimes the garbage. She then replicated the mirror half of each skylight to create jewel-like forms that are lit from within. Floating sideways, these gritty and magical beacons come into focus as you approach. “Hopefully it will engage people who’ve just flown in to New York and recognize the skylights from some of the buildings around here,” said Overton, “and encourage people to look up and down.”
On a wall of Delta’s arrivals and departures hall, the artist Ronny Quevedo has mounted a full-scale wooden gym floor fabricated from scratch.Credit…Justin Kaneps for The New York Times
NOW TO CLAIM YOUR BAGGAGE
On the walls of the vast baggage claim area the wall is decorated by:
“The Worlds We Speak” by Miriam Ghani has discs that represent the city’s linguistic communities. The small discs each state one language or greeting from the many parts of our city.
NO WHERE TO WAIT AND SIT, ALMOST
The only place to get a cup of coffee is a lone Starbucks in the far corner of baggage claim. There are about 8 seats around phone chargers in the arrivals area.
Got your luggage, exit and walk back to the old “Transportation Center” about 1,000 feet in front of the old terminal. Luckily, the Q70 bus is free and off to Roosevelt Avenue.
COMMENT
First, the artwork is great and the new open look with views out the window is a relief from the dreaded old La Guardia terminals.
I complain about things: one is attitude of architects, designers and airlines have removed many comforts for today’s travelers in the name of security.
To be in a terminal where there are thousands of square feet of vast open floors and not one chair to sit on. Disability access is more than providing a wheelchair, but making all customers comfortable.
There are bathrooms at the far end of each floor, luckily.
There is one Starbucks, no seats here.
I understand there is no money to be made in the arrivals area, no shops, no people waiting to depart.
Just get your bags and leave. It is apparent that customer service is only beyond TSA where people can spend before their flights.
MONDAY PHOTO
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roosevetltislandhistory@gmail.com
WEEKEND PHOTO
FDR FOUR FREEDOMS STATE PARK READY FOR
PRIDE MONTH!
ED LITCHER GOT IT!
Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c)
JUDITH BERDY
NEW YORK TIMES
QUEENS MUSEUM
GRANTS
CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
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