Up, Up and Away With TWA
Our August/September 2019 adventure to Massachusetts and upstate New York began and ended at the newly opened TWA Hotel at JFK.
We saw the hotel, across the street from the Jet Blue terminal, as we went to pick up our rental car.
We drove straight up New York State & then across into Massachusetts to Williamstown.
Aside from experiencing two incredibly nerve wracking rain squalls along the way, the trip was beautiful and uneventful. We visited Williamstown, the Clark Library, N. Adams & Mass MoCA, Lenox and Pittsfield, Tanglewood & the Norman Rockwell Museum.
We then headed west into N.Y. & the Finger Lakes; spending two nights on the shore of Cayuga Lake, & shuffling on to Buffalo with a stop in Rochester at the Geo. Eastman Museum. From Buffalo we visited Niagara Falls then drove across to Canada for a night & the Canadian view of the Falls.
The next stop was Hammondsport & the Glenn Curtiss Museum. After a stop at the Rockwell Museum in Ithaca we spent time in Mt. Tremper and Phoenecia, in Catskill Park. We then returned to JFK.
Despite the fabulous music of Tanglewood, phenomenal art seen in MA & NYS, the natural beauty & the history coming alive in NYS, & the grandeur of the natural wonder that is Niagara Falls, I had to start sharing this journey with the new TWA Hotel at JFK. It is a site that is so splendid and out of the ordinary.
We dropped off our luggage at the TWA Hotel & on checking in were thrilled to learn that our room was ready. After dropping off the car, we returned via the Jet Train, unencumbered by luggage.
The Port Authority of NY & NJ mandated that the hotel be built and staffed by union labor. This might explain why there was no cohesiveness & communication between staff working in different areas of the hotel.
The hotel opened in May. We discovered that we were there for the “soft” opening with the official opening scheduled for September 28th. They have a lot to do to get ready; not only physically. The staff needs more training & coordination between departments. All the social media comments confirmed our observations. Plus, it would be nice if more of the staff was familiar with the history of the terminal.
