John F. Kennedy International Airport (Images of Aviation)

My dad took two of my bff's and I to Idlewild on opening week! I STILL HAVE PHOTOS OF US in front of that B-52! There were all kinds of military aircraft lined up for the public to view.Real "Hands on". I even have the tickets that mayor O'Dwyer sent with a letter of invitation to us school kids.I still have the original book and gold coin they gave out.The biggest shock for me was the "Mens room"----- a HUGE DEEP open pit!:)) This book is a MUST HAVE to remind me of that visit!Thanks!

I was underwhelmed by the book. While it contained some great early photos, there was nothing in color and many inaccuracies in the dates and subject matter in the photos. It also contained nothing about the National Sundrome or BOAC Terminal.

Delivered on time and was exactly as advertised

I love it. Lots of pictures of JFK and PanAm and their histories. I will keep it around and enjoy it from time to time.

Interesting book about JFK

excellent

At the beginning of the Jet Age of commercial aircraft travel in the last years of the 1950's, the then Idlewild airport in New York City was poised as the ideal departure airport for the multitudes of new air passengers making their way to many European destinations. A six to eight hour flight to many of the European capitals was an easy trek. And of course it also served the millions of residents of the New York City area and it's immediate environs. Renamed JFK sometime after the death of President Kennedy in November 1963 it's growth as an international departure point had ballooned. In the Summer of 1968 my Mother, my Aunt and I made our way through JFK for our emotional trip to the "Old Country", Norway, to meet our Norwegian family from whom our parents and grandparents had said good bye in the late 1800's. We were the first of our immediate family to do so. We had flown from Dallas nonstop on American Airlines and were to continue on to Oslo nonstop on a Pan American flight that continued on to Helsinki. We experienced the new Pan American Worldport and our Pan Am B707-321 that day was N717PA Clipper Fleetwing, I have a picture of that aircraft. The July of 1968 departure delays at JFK had made national news and were shown in a color picture on a cover page of Life Magazine that month. We experienced a more than one hour taxi and holding time that evening before take off and I can still remember the smell of the kerosene as there must have been twenty or more aircraft in line waiting for take off clearance and the aircraft air conditioning systems could not avoid sucking in some of those fumes. After an especially rewarding trip and visit with our Norwegian relatives we returned from Oslo on a DC9 via Copenhagen on SAS, also on to JFK on SAS on one of their new DC8-62's through the International Arrivals Terminal. Thereupon making our way to the Braniff Airways terminal at JFK, we continued on to Dallas on a Braniff B727-100 with an intermediate stop at the new Dulles Airport in Virginia outside Washington, D.C. Subsequently during the years of my business career and some holiday travel I made many additional flights through JFK, but, none came with the same emotion and thrill as that first one on the way to Norway! This book is a special reminder to me of some of my personal family history.

I've personally been to JFK Airport in New York four times in the past. I went to Jet Blue's Terminal 5 when I arrived there from CA and caught a connecting flight to Vermont. Also, on the way back from Burlington to NY and the NY to CA connecting flight. I also have been in the Pan-Am terminal in 1990 on my flights to and from Zurich, Switzerland. Some of the interesting information that the book mentions is as follows: What is known as JFK Airport came into being in the mid 1940s after the realization that LaGuardia Airport was inadequate. JFK Airport was known as NY International Airport-Idlewild Field. The airport was renamed John F. Kennedy Airport in Dec. 1963. It has grown to cover 5,000 acres which is approximately one-third the size of Manhattan Island. International travel at that airport accounted for 17% of all United States travelers going overseas. It now handles an average of about 50,000 international travelers each day. The Pan-American Airways (Pan-Am) terminal 3 went to Delta after Pan-Am's financial collapse in the early 1990s. Terminal 4 became the new international terminal. In Terminal 5, Jet Blue incorporated the TWA Flight Center. At the time that the book was written, there was a helicopter service flying between Downtown Manhattan and the Airport at the price of $159 each way.