Ramada Plaza JFK Hotel | |
---|---|
Former names | International Hotel Travelodge New York JFK |
Hotel chain | Ramada |
General information | |
Status | Closed |
Type | Hotel |
Location | John F. Kennedy International Airport |
Town or city | Queens, New York City, New York |
Country | United States |
Opened | May 8, 1958 [1] |
Closed | December 1, 2009 |
Owner | Port Authority of New York and New Jersey |
Technical details | |
Material | White brick (façade) |
Floor count | 6 |
Other information | |
Number of rooms | 478 |
The Ramada Plaza JFK Hotel was a Ramada-branded hotel at John F. Kennedy International Airport, located in South Ozone Park, Queens, New York City, New York, United States.
While in operation, The Ramada Plaza JFK was JFK Airport's only on-site hotel. [2] It was located in Airport Building 144, [3] [4] a six-story, [5] white-brick building [6] with 478 rooms. [7]
The hotel was opened on May 8, 1958 as the International Hotel. [1] Prior to being a Ramada hotel, it was a Forte Hotels-managed property that was branded as the Travelodge New York JFK. [8]
For several years, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), the airport's owner, leased the building and site to the hotel-holding company Westmont Hospitality Group. [2] In 2009, a PANYNJ spokesperson said that Westmont Hospitality Group decided not to renew the lease for 2009. [9]
With the expiration of the lease in late 2008, PANYNJ resumed control of the building [2] and leased the facility to Highgate Holdings for one year, [9] although the PANYNJ preliminary 2010 budget issued in 2009 indicated that an estimated savings of $1 million per month would be achieved by PANYNJ with the reported closing of the hotel due to "declining aviation activity and a need for substantial renovation". [10] The hotel closed on December 1, 2009, with almost 200 employees made redundant and the PANYNJ hoping to construct a new hotel on the airport property. [9] Until TWA Hotel opened within the former TWA Flight Center in 2019, there was no on-site hotel at JFK Airport. [11]
A series of nearby airplane-crash incidents, the flights of which originated at the airport [6] in the 1990s and 2000s, caused the hotel to be casually referred to as the "heartbreak hotel" when the facilities would be used as the temporary central housing and gathering place for family members of passengers and crew, as well as the media. [12] [13]
The crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 originated the use of the hotel facilities for guest housing, bereavement-related services and news gathering for crash-incident-related purposes. [14] Ying Chan, Jose Lambiet and Jere Hester of the Daily News wrote that for the families the hotel became "a makeshift grief counseling center". [15] Many waited there for the remains of their family members to be recovered, identified and released. [16] [17] U.S. President Bill Clinton visited the hotel while it housed TWA Flight 800 next of kin. [5] The hotel also hosted families of Swissair Flight 111 (1998), [12] EgyptAir Flight 990 (1999) [18] and American Airlines Flight 587 (2001) victims. [13]
Trans World Airlines Flight 800 (TWA800) was a Boeing 747-100 that exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York on July 17, 1996 at approximately 8:31 p.m. EDT, 12 minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, on a scheduled international passenger flight to Rome with a stopover in Paris. All 230 people on board died in the crash; it is the third-deadliest aviation accident in U.S. history. Accident investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) traveled to the scene, arriving the following morning amid speculation that a terrorist attack was the cause of the crash.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is a joint venture between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, established in 1921 through an interstate compact authorized by the United States Congress. The Port Authority oversees much of the regional transportation infrastructure, including bridges, tunnels, airports, and seaports, within the geographical jurisdiction of the Port of New York and New Jersey. This 1,500-square-mile (3,900 km2) port district is generally encompassed within a 25-mile (40 km) radius of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. The Port Authority is headquartered at 4 World Trade Center.
John F. Kennedy International Airport, colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK, is the main international airport serving New York City. The airport is the busiest of the seven airports in the New York airport system, the 6th-busiest airport in the United States, and the busiest international air passenger gateway into North America. The facility covers 5,200 acres (2,104 ha) and is the largest and busiest airport in the New York City area.
Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major airline in the United States that operated from 1930 until 2001 when it was acquired by American Airlines. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis, Kansas City, and other stops, with Ford Trimotors. With American, United, and Eastern, it was one of the "Big Four" domestic airlines in the United States formed by the Spoils Conference of 1930.
Newark Liberty International Airport, originally Newark Metropolitan Airport and later Newark International Airport, is an international airport straddling the boundary between the cities of Newark in Essex County and Elizabeth in Union County, New Jersey, in the United States. Located about 4.5 miles (7.2 km) south of downtown Newark and 9 miles (14 km) west-southwest of Manhattan in New York City, it is a major gateway to points in Europe, South America, Asia, and Oceania. It is jointly owned by the cities and leased to its operator, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. It is the second-busiest airport in the New York airport system behind John F. Kennedy International Airport but far ahead of LaGuardia Airport.
LaGuardia Airport is a civil airport in East Elmhurst, Queens, New York City. Covering 680 acres (280 ha) as of July 1, 2023, the facility was established in 1929 and began operating as a public airport in 1939. It is named after former New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia.
AirTrain JFK is an 8.1-mile-long (13 km) elevated people mover system and airport rail link serving John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. The driverless system operates 24/7 and consists of three lines and nine stations within the New York City borough of Queens. It connects the airport's terminals with the New York City Subway in Howard Beach, Queens, and with the Long Island Rail Road and the subway in Jamaica, Queens. Alstom operates AirTrain JFK under contract to the airport's operator, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
The original Overseas National Airways Inc (ONA) was an American airline, formed in June 1950 as a supplemental air carrier. It ceased operations on September 14, 1978. The airline started as Air Travel in 1946 and was renamed Calasia Air Transport the same year. The name changed to Overseas National in 1950 when it became a supplemental air carrier.
New York Airways was an American helicopter airline in the New York City area, founded in 1949 as a mail and cargo carrier. On 9 July 1953 it may have been the first scheduled helicopter airline to carry passengers in the United States, with headquarters at LaGuardia Airport. Although primarily a helicopter airline operator with scheduled passenger operations, New York Airways also flew fixed wing aircraft, such as the de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 19-passenger STOL twin turboprop aircraft.
Interstate 678 (I-678) is a north–south auxiliary Interstate Highway that extends for 14 miles (23 km) through two boroughs of New York City. The route begins at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Jamaica Bay and travels north through Queens and across the East River to the Bruckner Interchange in the Bronx, where I-678 ends and the Hutchinson River Parkway begins.
New York State Route 878 (NY 878) is an east-west expressway on Long Island and in New York City. The route exists in two sections, which both form the Nassau Expressway. NY 878's western terminus is the Belt Parkway and Conduit Avenue (NY 27) in Ozone Park, within southern Queens. Its southern terminus is immediately before the Village of Atlantic Beach, at the Atlantic Beach Bridge in Lawrence, within southwestern Nassau County. NY 878 is discontinuous between Farmers Boulevard in Queens and the town of Inwood in Nassau County. The two sections are connected to each other by Rockaway Boulevard and Rockaway Turnpike.
The Sundrome, later TWA Domestic Terminal and Terminal 6, was one of several terminals at John F. Kennedy International Airport. It was designed by I. M. Pei & Partners. Opened in 1969, it was initially used by National Airlines. It had been occupied at various times by Trans World Airlines, Pan Am, United Airlines, ATA Airlines, Pan American Airways (1996–1998), Carnival Airlines, Vanguard Airlines, and America West Airlines. Most recently, from 1998 to 2008, Terminal 6 was the home of JetBlue. It became vacant on October 22, 2008, when JetBlue moved to Terminal 5, and finally demolished in 2011.
The TWA Flight Center, also known as the Trans World Flight Center, is an airport terminal and hotel complex at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK). The original terminal building, or head house, operated as a terminal from 1962 to 2001 and was adaptively repurposed in 2017 as part of the TWA Hotel. The head house is partially encircled by a replacement terminal building completed in 2008, and flanked by two buildings added for the hotel. The replacement terminal is home to JetBlue's JFK operations. The head house and terminal are collectively known as Terminal 5 or T5.
TWA Flight 843 was a scheduled Trans World Airlines passenger flight that crashed after an aborted takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport to San Francisco International Airport (California) in July 1992. Despite an intense fire after the crash, the crew was able to evacuate all 280 passengers from the aircraft. There was no loss of life, although the aircraft was destroyed by the fire.
"Heartbreak Hotel" is a song by Elvis Presley.
The New York metropolitan area has the busiest airport system in the United States and the second busiest in the world after London. It is also the most frequently used port of entry and departure for international flights. In 2011, more than 104 million passengers used the airports under the auspices of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ). The number increased to 117 million in 2014.
AirTrain LaGuardia was a proposed 1.5-mile-long (2.4 km) people mover system and elevated railway in New York City, United States, that would provide service to LaGuardia Airport in Queens. It would have connected with the New York City Subway and Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) in Willets Point, similar to how the existing AirTrain JFK system connects John F. Kennedy International Airport’s six terminals to the LIRR in southern Queens at Jamaica station and to the subway at both Sutphin Boulevard–Archer Avenue–JFK Airport station and Howard Beach-JFK Airport station; and how the existing AirTrain Newark station connects Newark Liberty International Airport’s three terminals to NJ Transit Rail Operations and Amtrak at a dedicated station.
TWA Hotel is a hotel at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York City, that opened on May 15, 2019. It uses the head house of the TWA Flight Center, designed in 1962 by the architect Eero Saarinen, and two flanking buildings added for the hotel project. It contains a total of 512 rooms, as well as conference space, several restaurants, and an aviation history museum.
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