{"id":527288,"date":"2018-08-24T11:44:16","date_gmt":"2018-08-24T11:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/?p=527288"},"modified":"2020-03-06T14:30:45","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T14:30:45","slug":"the-last-flight-from-pan-am-s-historic-terminal-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/reportage\/the-last-flight-from-pan-am-s-historic-terminal-3.html","title":{"rendered":"The last flight from Pan Am\u2019s historic Terminal 3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"pan-am-airport-jfk\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Architects immediately dubbed it \u201cthe flying saucer<\/strong>,\u201d but for aviation aficionados and others who indulge in nostalgia for the golden age of jet travel, Terminal 3<\/strong> of New York\u2019s John F. Kennedy International Airport<\/strong> will always simply be the home of Pan American World Airways<\/strong>, or Pan Am<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The terminal\u2019s construction was financed by the airline itself, which baptized it as the \u201cWorldport<\/strong>.\u201d But its nickname \u201cflying saucer<\/strong>\u201d stuck, because of a similarity with the round building\u2019s large, slim, circular roof created to protect the airplanes and their passengers from bad weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New York Times aviation reporter Richard Witken<\/strong> best described the design\u2019s function in 1957<\/strong>: \u201cIt will eliminate the huddled dash through bad weather by extending the roof like a huge oblong umbrella<\/a> over the aircraft parking space.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it did. Inaugurated<\/strong> in 1960<\/strong> and designed by the architecture firm Ives, Turano & Gardner Associated Architects and by Walther Prokosch of Tippets-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton, the terminal reflected<\/strong> a new<\/strong> philosophy<\/strong> of air travel<\/strong> in which planes<\/strong> needed<\/strong> to get<\/strong> as<\/strong> physically<\/strong> close<\/strong> to<\/strong> passengers<\/strong> as possible<\/strong>. With its radial form and a roof much wider than its base, which housed the passenger waiting area, Terminal<\/strong> 3<\/strong> enabled pilots to park<\/strong> the jets<\/strong> directly<\/strong> beneath<\/strong> the<\/strong> roof<\/strong> so that passengers<\/strong> could reach<\/strong> the plane<\/strong> by<\/strong> foot<\/strong> or by uncovered bridges. Just as importantly, the terminal had a panoramic<\/strong> lounge<\/strong> called the Panorama<\/strong> Room<\/strong> where passengers could eat and a museum<\/strong> telling the story of Pan Am.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pan<\/strong> Am<\/strong> decided to call the building the \u201cPan<\/strong> Am<\/strong> Worldport<\/strong>\u201d in 1971 when it was enlarged to host the new fleet of Boeing<\/strong> 747s<\/strong>, becoming the largest<\/strong> terminal<\/strong> in<\/strong> the<\/strong> world<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"pan-am-airport-jfk-4\"
Aerial panoramic view of Terminal 3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cflying saucer\u201d did its job for over 50 years, reaching its peak<\/strong> of popularity during Pan<\/strong> Am\u2019s<\/strong> golden<\/strong> age<\/strong> in the 1960s<\/strong> and 70s<\/strong>, when it was widely seen as the most important and innovative airline in the United States. The fortunes of this landmark piece of infrastructure<\/strong> crumbled<\/strong> however in 1991<\/strong> along with the fortunes of Pan<\/strong> Am itself, which went bankrupt<\/strong>. Delta Airlines scooped up some of Pan Am\u2019s assets, and began to use the \u201cWorldport\u201d as its own terminal. But by then the facility was starting to show its age, and plans for a new terminal started to take shape. Delta<\/strong> started to invest<\/strong> in expanding<\/strong> Terminal<\/strong> 4<\/strong>, which it picked as its headquarters instead of the historic \u201cflying saucer.\u201d The construction of Terminal 4 took several years, and when it was finished, the flight operations in and out of Terminal 3 were moved elsewhere. On 23 May 2013<\/strong> at 11:25 PM, flight<\/strong> 268<\/strong> departed<\/strong> from Gate<\/strong> 6<\/strong>. It was a Boeing<\/strong> 747<\/strong> leaving for Tel<\/strong> Aviv<\/strong> and \u2013 after 52 years of service \u2013 was the last flight to take off from Terminal 3 at J.F.K.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The terminal\u2019s demolition did not take place immediately. The infrastructure<\/strong> is considered to be such an important<\/strong> symbol<\/strong> for the New<\/strong> York airport<\/strong> that a \u201cSave<\/strong> the<\/strong> Worldport<\/strong>\u201d movement sprung up to halt its destruction. An online<\/strong> petition<\/strong> to protect it was signed by over 3,000 people. The National Trust for Historic Preservation even went so far in 2013 to include the terminal on its list of \u201cEleven Most Endangered Historic Places\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the terminal\u2019s owner and operator, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, that poured cold water on any hope of preserving the terminal as a landmark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe old Pan Am Worldport terminal at J.F.K. served this region for more than a half century, but is obsolete for 21st-century aviation purposes,\u201d said Port Authority spokesman Ron Marisco. \u201cUnfortunately, J.F.K. is a land-constrained airport, and the space where Worldport is located cannot be set aside for preservation because it is needed for other aviation uses that will lead to job creation and economic growth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Port Authority spokesman\u2019s words could not be clearer. The old terminal<\/strong> was pulled<\/strong> down<\/strong> in 2014<\/strong> to make way for an airplane parking lot. The Worldport terminal was not demolished to make way for something else, but as part of a renovation of its neighboring terminals, 4 and 2, which have been fundamental for Delta Airlines in positioning itself as transport leader in the skies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The curtain fell on Pan Am\u2019s Terminal<\/strong> 3<\/strong>, an infrastructure that along with the vanished<\/strong> airline<\/strong> itself was a symbol of the golden age of aviation<\/strong> across the globe for many years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Architects immediately dubbed it \u201cthe flying saucer,\u201d but for aviation aficionados and others who indulge in nostalgia for the golden age of jet travel, Terminal 3 of New York\u2019s John F. Kennedy International Airport will always simply be the home of Pan American World Airways, or Pan Am. The terminal\u2019s construction was financed by the airline itself, which baptized it as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":527286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[14736,14748,5170,14747,14746,5165,14749,14732,7616,14733,102,6256,5164,14750,6251,6248,6263,14741,6258,14744],"class_list":["post-527288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reportage"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527288"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":532065,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527288\/revisions\/532065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527288"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=527288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}