IT’S been years since I’ve been on an airplane. I last flew in 2008, to spend a week in San Francisco. I had a ball climbing up the steep hills and checking out the buildings and infrastructure and caught both a Giants and A’s game, as it marked my one and only appearance in both San Fran and Oakland. As always happens when I am out of town, though, I had difficulty sleeping in a bed not my own and had virtually no winks the first three nights; even doses of Benadryl weren’t enough to knock me out. Despite that I was stoked and had all the energy in the world. Except, of course, on the bus heading for Marin County to see the redwoods, I nodded off as we were on the Golden Gate Bridge and missed most of the passage. Will 2024 be the year? After years of having either no money or time, I may have both and may be able to do some traveling, we’ll see.
Since I haven’t flown I haven’t been in JFK Airport…with one exception. A few years ago I visited the Eero Saarinen TWA terminal, which I must have seen previously as a lad of 4 in 1962 when the family flew out to LA to visit relations. I didn’t recall anything of the terminal, though. On subsequent JFK visits, I marveled at the swan-shaped lampposts, which came in single and twin versions. By the 1970s (left) their original fixtures had been replaced by GE M400s, second versions with the photocell at the rear, which dominated NYC streets for a couple of decades.
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On a news report today, I noticed these posts on I-678 Van Wyck Expressway) within the airport, which I have to say are rather echoic of the Swans (which I call the former JFK poles). I’d have to say that the airport installed these poles as a tribute to the originals. What do you think? Comments are open.
Kevin Walsh is the webmaster of the award-winning website Forgotten NY, and the author of the books Forgotten New York (HarperCollins, 2006) and also, with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, Forgotten Queens (Arcadia, 2013)
12/27/23