I went there with high school friends when it first opened for a late night adventure, got home late and folks were upset! Was a great looking building!

Her name is Alice. So naturally TWA means "Travels With Alice".

BTW, our separation and divorce was amicable. But I cannot think of TWA without thinking of her. It is too bad that it did not work out. Because I enjoyed all my travels with Alice.

BTW, she was stewardess out of LA, so she met many Hollywood stars in first class. Her favorite? She was unequivocal; it was Rod Serling, apparently a super nice guy. Her least favorite was equally easy, Lucille Ball, who would not even talk to the "help", a really horrible person.

R&K

I passed through this beautiful building. To me, it will always represent a time when flying was something special.

As for TWA flight attendants, I dated one in the early 80's. She worked the LAX-JFK redeye a lot. My favorite of her celebrity tales was when she had to take a blanket out of the overhead and throw it over Sylvester Stallone and Susan Anton who were working on their membership into the Mile High Club.

He didn't live to see it completed, though. Kind of sad to see it transformed, but nothing lasts forever, and I'm sure it will remain an iconic work. Maybe I'll go rent a room for a night or two when it's done. How much do you suppose that would run?

The few times I've flown into JFK in recent years (I usually go to Laguardia), it seems so sad to me to see that empty, abandoned structure.

My bet is that they will do a superb job of preserving the building as they add hotel space, as captured in the rendering below, and according to this report:

A rendering shows a low rise building peeking out from behind Saarinen's swooping beauty, and a press release says that the new building will "set back from the terminal, designed to defer to the landmark," which will become the hotel's lobby. The new building and any changes to the Flight Center, which is an interior and exterior landmark, will have to be approved by go before the Landmarks Preservation Commission. [UPDATE: While the LPC will have a say in the process, the project is actually not under the commission's jurisdiction since it is owned by the Port Authority, which is not bound by LPC decisions.] The developer also has a "plan to include innovative museum focusing on New York as the birthplace of the Jet Age, the storied history of TWA Airlines, and the Midcentury Modern design movement."

The redevelopment is a public-private partnership between MCR Development, JetBlue, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, but it will be privately funded. MCR converted the old General Theological Seminary into the High Line Hotel, so they know a thing or two about working with historic buildings.

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2015/07/27/jfks_iconic_terminal_to_become_the_twa_flight_center_hotel.php

http://cdn.cstatic.net/gridnailer/660x/

About 40 years ago my family and I visited a hotel called "The Gobbler" here in Wisconsin.

The hotel was a hoot, but was burned and torn down about 20 or so years ago.

http://www.lileks.com/institute/motel/

As part of Open House NY.
What a spectacular building, so glad the found a way to keep it as lobby for the new hotel.
It looks like they are keeping it as original as possible.

It has a very "2001" feel, sad that made way for the sterile International Style by the 70s.

At least it is surviving.

...visually stunning and functionally horrible.

The TWA flight center never worked well, and neither did Dulles Airport.