The Skyscraper-Topping Airport Manhattan Might Have Had

[Agschmid]

This would have made rent a lot cheaper on the west side

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New York City is hard to leave. I don't mean emotionally, I mean physically; getting to and from JFK is a total pain in the ass. It'll take you three or four expressways by car, or a roundabout, unpredictable subway ride on the A- or (shudder) the J-train.

Things would've been different, if a slightly batty real estate developer had had his way in 1946. William Zeckendorf, who owned the Chrysler Building and had hired the likes of Le Corbusier and I.M. Pei for his projects, proposed what Life Magazine referred to as "New York City's Dream Airport:"

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We are always talking about great American ingenuity and where it went... well sometimes those old idea may not have worked after all.

[eloydude]

1. Can you imagine listening to 747s or A380s landing on that thing?

*KERASHHHHHHH*

[Rolando]

2. Your comments on difficulties reaching JFK from Manhattan

just are not true. It's easy, and it costs less by cab than getting from the Tucson airport to my house in the city center. If you don't have a lot of luggage (or maybe even if you do), using the A-train is also easy. As for the rents on the Upper West Side (or any of Manhattan), they're programmed to go up annually, regardless of the rest of the economy. Go ahead and whine.

[Agschmid]

3. You meant to reply to me it seems...

Also it's an article posted by a NY'er and I'd agree on most points.

Say I take Jetblue, arrive at T5, multiple moving walkways and skybridge to the baggage claim. Then multiple moving walkways and skybridge to the shuttle train. Then a 10 minute ride to the A train or E trying whichever. Then a 20 minute ride back into town.

There are airports with MUCH easier access.

[NYC_SKP]

4. Try being a little nicer to my friend, there, Rolando.

Thanks in advance.

[cwydro]

8. Rolando, the OP's post was a quote from an article.

Welcome to DU. Most of us are pretty friendly around here.

Snark is usually unnecessary.

[trumad]

9. You can't be serious.

As someone who frequently flies into NY I avoid JFK like the plague. Sure you can get there--just add 30 minutes on to your schedule. Oh and the A train--- ugg! The forever express.

[Sherman A1]

5. I think some of the ideas are

very interesting and while perhaps they would not have worked, perhaps in some version they might have done so. It's always fun to imagine what might have been, even if just for a couple of moments.

[doxyluv13]

6. As they found mooring Zeppelins to the Empire State building

and landing helicopters on the (then) Pan-Am building, wind are so high at that elevation that it makes aviation excessively dangerous.

[JHB]

7. This would have been a fiasco. Obsolete before it could be finished...

Part of the plan was that the whole roof would be the landing area, with planes lowered on elevators into loading/offloading, and maintenance areas, like a giant, land-bound aircraft carrier.

What size planes could it handle? How heavy? And consider what would be necessary to retrofit it if (and when, as it turned out) planes got larger than originally planned. How does an arrangement that works just fine for Lockheed Constellations handle a Boeing 707? Much less a 747?



Also, take a look at all those passenger ships. What happens to that side of the business by the 1970s?

Finally, consider what would be needed to acquire the properties and clear the entire area:



A lot of those "rents would be cheaper" neighborhoods wouldn't even exist anymore, except perhaps as apartments in the windowless bowels of a decaying ugly monument to obsolescence.

Add in a few high-profile crashes in the middle of Manhattan, and it's closed before 1980.

[treestar]

10. Weird idea

no wonder it wasn't invested in.

[MohRokTah]

11. JFK is actually pretty damned easy to get to from Manhatten

Take the J train to Jamaica Bay, then the Airport Tram. Takes about fifteen minutes less than taking a taxi from Wall Street, and is less than a quarter of the cost.