At the time that the terminal was being closed down, I mentioned it to someone at my company who had been a higher-up at an airline (very post-TWA) which used that terminal. His comment was basically that it was a really awful terminal :-)
I had to check but it only closed in 2001, I'm sure it was really awful to use by then! Never went there, but can confirm air travel was not very Mad Men by that point.
You throwing the date out there made me realize I was confused. I was a bit surprised to read TWA when I was thinking that it was Pan Am's terminal. And, indeed, that was the one I was thinking of and that one was actually demolished a few years back. [1] It was also quite iconic.
I probably flew through there at some point. My dad used to travel internationally on Pan Am all the time and he told me that that's where he always got his hair cut.
The old Pan Am terminal was truly atrocious. There were tarps, hoses, and buckets everywhere for the leaking roof. Also there was limited seating for any of the gates because there of course had to be tons of Hudson News shops. I’m definitely one to feel airline nostalgia but that place definitely needed to go.
