Written by,
Dianne Pierce O’Brien

A feature of New York City’s JFK Airport since 1962, the TWA Terminal has earned its place as a global icon of Modernism and aviation. Although the building’s expressive form gave it international recognition, its uniqueness is also the cause of frustration for many preservationists searching for a new use for the terminal.

The long preservation journey following its short-lived glory days has been a series of challenges and questions. How do you preserve a building that was designed for a function it can no longer fulfill? What do you think are the broader implications of the adaptive reuse of this building to the preservation of Modernism?

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It all began in 1954. The Port Authority, the entity that manages the airport and other transit systems within New York City and Northern New Jersey, announced that each airline operating out of JFK International (then Idlewild) Airport could erect a terminal designed by an architect of their own choosing. Trans World Airlines employed Eero Saarinen & Associates to design the extant TWA terminal, 1956-62. Saarinen intended the terminal to “interpret the sensation of flying” and “to express the excitement of travel” by combining the aesthetics of flight with the functional actualities of the Jet Age. The traveler could leisurely watch planes on the tarmac take off and land from within a space designed to celebrate and evoke the thrill and luxury of 1960s air travel.

The TWA Terminal revolutionized air terminal design and created features that became the staples of a modern airport. Chief among these was the “satellite” plan, in which ancillary buildings radiate from the main terminal connected, in this case, by tubular walkways. Saarinen designed the terminal to address three problems of air travel: a speedy check-in process, the constant updating of flight information, and swift baggage delivery. It was a terminal designed to fulfill these essential functions as well as to reflect the Jet Age. All of the elements of the space have one consistent character made up of curvilinear shapes designed to mimic one another and evoke the sense of flight.

Saarinen’s design concept created a “family of forms” so that the building sends the same message from wherever one experiences it, whether inside or outside. In 1994 the TWA Terminal was designated as a both an interior and exterior New York City Landmark. However, this designation could not save the building from its largest detriment to date – the bankruptcy of Trans World Airlines in 2000. The building was then turned over to the Port Authority, which declared it functionally obsolescent, and has been looking for a program to fill it ever since.

Although the struggle for the building’s functionality as a modern airport terminal became most evident following its vacancy in the 21^st century, Saarinen’s innovative terminal has been functionally challenged almost since its incarnation. The Jet Age was a time when airport travel was rapidly evolving. However technologically innovative and intuitive the design was in the early 1960s, the need for greater space, security measures, and growing technology soon superseded the functionality of Saarinen’s design. In the minds of many, the most reasonable program for a building is one closest to that for which it was originally designed. Does such reasoning have much weight when the building’s functional needs so quickly outgrew its design?

Richard Pieper, preservation consultant and partner at Jan Hird Pokorny Associates, believes that “an appropriate program and business model is the single most important thing to the success of the preservation of this building.” He also stressed that “buildings in New York don’t survive unless they have a use,” adding “not everything can be a museum.” But how do we use this building, which can no longer fulfill the function for which it was designed?

Although the Port Authority has sponsored two restorations – one of the central terminal after its acquisition in 2000, and one $20 million restoration of the interior in 2008 that involved asbestos removal – a functional occupancy has yet to be found. Perhaps the most promising of the various campaigns was the 2003 plan to use the terminal as an entrance to the new Jet Blue Terminal 5. For reasons unknown this promising plan, which would have had TWA operate in a way similar to its original function, never came to fruition. Now the TWA Terminal stands vacant with Terminal 5 situated behind it.

There has been a recent call by the Port Authority for designs for a small boutique hotel (approximately 150 rooms) to fill the terminal, which will require new design and construction. Because of the limited space available within the 1962 terminal, firms must propose designs for new construction that incorporate the needed space while remaining respectful of Saarinen’s iconic design. However, there are limitations to such a program. The amount of construction that would respect the TWA Terminal in both height and adjacency is now limited by 1) the location of Terminal 5, and 2) the high water table that makes below-grade construction much more difficult, expensive, and less desirable.

With only so much space to build between the TWA Terminal and Terminal 5, the construction must be mostly above-ground due to the high water table. Ideally, an adaptive reuse design should also take into consideration the relationship between the original TWA Terminal and its view of airport operations. How can the contextual relationship of the terminal be maintained when such adjacent new construction is required?

Although the reincarnation of the building as an entry to a functioning terminal would be ideal, it would also be interesting to see it used as an airport bar, lounge, or restaurant space where the weary traveler can once again experience the excitement of the Jet Age so gloriously expressed in the form and context of this iconic terminal.

With these considerations in mind, what do you think would be an appropriate program for the building?

 - Heather Hartshorn, PresArch

For a virtual tour of the TWA terminal, please go to: http://www.nylocations.com/360-panorama/twa-terminal

Sources:

Landmarks Preservation Commission. “Trans World Airlines Flight Center (now TWA Terminal A) At New York International Airport,” Designation List 259, LP-1915. New York, NY: July 19, 1994.

Landmarks Preservation Commission. “Trans World Airlines Flight Center (now TWA Terminal A) At New York International Airport,” Designation List 259, LP-1916. New York, NY: July 19, 1994.

“Resolution Reached for Landmark TWA Terminal at JFK; Preservation, Public Policy, Practicality are Big Winners,” Municipal Arts Society Press Release. New York, NY: October 22, 2003.

Docomomo NY/Tri-State

archdaily.com (12 Feb 2011)

gothamist.com (7 Feb 2011)

NTHP

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/20/magazine/look-twa-terminal.html

Eero Saarinen: An Architecture of Multiplicity By Antonio Román

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James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro have received massive praise for their “novel urban park” and the Meatpacking District, one of Manhattan’s west side neighborhoods, was completely transformed from a tired industrial area to a high-end hot spot in the time it took for the park to be constructed. In 2010 the New York Landmarks Conservancy even presented the Friends of the High Line with the Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award. The railway-turned-park has put on its best vintage dress and is a sweeping international sensation, and plans to create “copycat” High Lines are being proposed all over the world, from Chicago to Detroit, and from Mexico City to Jerusalem.

Yet with all of the excitement from the architecture world regarding the High Line’s success, the history of the infrastructure itself, as well as the actual process of its transformation, has seemingly received relatively little recognition. This warrants a second look at what exactly this project means for both architecture and historic preservation. It also begs the question as to whether the High Line has been so successful because it is a unique piece of contemporary design, or because it is the result of an effective execution and innovation of preservation strategy?

In order to set the stage for a discussion concerning the impact and role of preservation in the creation of the High Line, we present a history of the High Line and an overview of its transformation from a functional railway to an inventive public space.

A (Relatively) Brief History of the High Line

In 1923, a plan was first presented by the New York Central Railroad Company to transform a portion of the street level West Side Railroad (built in the mid-nineteenth century) into an elevated structure between Spring Street and West Thirty-fourth Street. The railway was part of a “west side improvement plan” and was considered to be the “life line of New York.” The “High Line,” a name given to the elevated railway only recently, was a replacement for the existing at-grade tracks that ran largely along Eleventh Avenue, and resulted in so many pedestrian deaths that the road became known as “Death Avenue.”

At the June 1934 dedication of the newly-elevated two-track line, the railroad development was hailed as “one of the greatest public improvements in the history of New York.” The New York Times wrote: “The roving New Yorker gets a [big] thrill out of the New York Central’s elevated freight road. Leaving the surface of Eleventh Avenue below Thirty-fourth Street, the railroad is set free from the city street map and takes directions of its own. High in the air, it cuts through city blocks. It passes into big buildings in its path and emerges on the other side to continue on its way, leaping any cross streets it meets.”

This excitement, however, did not last long. The Great Depression took its toll on New York City manufacturing, and although the railway played a crucial role in the transportation of goods during World War II, the development of the interstate highway system in the 1950s quickly overcame the City. As highways and trucks became the preferred mode of transportation, manufacturers’ dependency on the West Side Elevated Railway decreased, so much so that the southernmost portion (from Spring Street to Bank Street) was demolished in the 1960s. The last train passed along its tracks in November 1980, thus ending the use of the West Side Railroad for its original purpose.

In the 1980s, a neighborhood resident named Peter E. Obletz (who lived in two dining cars behind Pennsylvania Station) purchased two miles of the railroad from Conrail, who then owned the tracks. Interested in preserving and restoring the remaining portion of the elevated tracks, he founded the West Side Rail Line Development Foundation with the intention of reusing the railroad for passenger service. Yet after five years of an unsuccessful fight against the city, state, and individuals who wanted the tracks demolished, Obletz ended up selling the two miles of track back to Conrail. In 1991, the tracks were subjected to demolition once again, with five blocks from Bank Street to Gansevoort Street being torn down. Eight years later, the non-profit Friends of the High Line was founded by Joshua David and Robert Hammond, and along with Joel Sternfeld and his photographs of the abandoned rail line, sparked new interest in its preservation.

Friends of the High Line was much more successful in its endeavor to save the remaining elevated portion of the West Side Railroad and convert it to public use. In 2003, after years of lobbying for public and City support, an international ideas completion was held in order to brainstorm possible new uses for the railroad; 720 teams from thirty-six countries submitted proposals. The eventual decision to turn the decommissioned elevated railway into a public park was still a novel idea, as only one precedent existed in Paris’ Promenade Plantée (1993), the railroad viaduct-turned-elevated-park in the 12^th Arrondissement.

In 2005, the tracks from Gansevoort Street to West 30^th Street were donated to New York City by CSX Transportation, Inc. (which bought the line from Conrail in 1998), allowing construction of the High Line to begin.

The Transformation of the High Line

The transformation of the elevated portion of the West Side Railroad into the High Line was directed by the design team of James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. (To see the entire list of consultants for the project, please visit http://thehighline.org/design/design-team).

Due to twenty years of deterioration, the High Line required a massive amount of deconstruction, reconstruction, and new construction in order to bring the vision for the park to life. The structure of the railroad was originally composed of mild steel columns and beams that supported a concrete slab, which in turn provided support for the iron rails and gravel ballast. Over the years of disuse, soil and other debris had accumulated on the line, supporting extensive vegetative growth; the result was the formation of a naturally occurring park (that was technically inaccessible) in the middle of Manhattan. Because of the unknown stability of the rail structure (mild steel and reinforced concrete, left unchecked, can suffer extensive corrosion/degradation and loss of structural strength) coupled with its proposed use as a public space, everything on the steel structure was removed, with the exception of a layer of concrete. A structural analysis and rehabilitation was conducted for the steel and concrete elements, followed by (according to the High Line website):

• The tagging, mapping, and storing of each section of removed railroad track;
• The repainting of the steel structure to match the original color;
• The restoration of the decorative Art Deco railings that exist at locations where the tracks cross over streets, including repairs and fabrication of missing parts;
• The removal of steel beams to allow for stairs to rise up from the sidewalk, “allowing visitors to come face-to-face with the steel beams and girders on their way up;”
• The return of “many of the rails and other steel railroad artifacts” to their original location.

The new-design component of the High Line drew its inspiration from the vegetation that had grown wild for decades. But the reimagining of the surface of the elevated line looked far past a simple concrete slab topped with two sets of tracks and an organically produced greenspace. The railway was transformed into a completely new space, a world of vignettes composed of intricately designed plantings (meant to mimic the historic natural growth) and train-track-inspired concrete walkways that seemingly mold themselves into both plant beds and benches. The selectively-replaced original tracks weave in and out of the site, hiding beneath grasses one minute and in the middle of the walkway the next. And in the most playful nod to the High Line’s past use, just as the line gently curves into Chelsea Market, large reclining seats are built into a section of replaced tracks. If you are lucky, you can get a spot on one of the few that actually rolls.

Food for Thought

The High Line is a unique example of the retention of historic infrastructure in New York City, and architectural design, landscape design, and preservation all played a part in its creation. But its final physical transformation questions what the boundaries of preservation really are.

Was the High Line, so often publicized as a preservation marvel, fully preserved? How does selective reconstruction and demolition of original fabric fit into the modern definition of preservation? How does the High Line, as it was redesigned/reinterpreted, speak to its history, and does it need to? Have the unique (and extremely sought-after) views over and through the Meatpacking District and West Chelsea become more interesting to visitors than the structure itself?

Finally, how does the interpretation of the railway impact how the park is regarded? Should it be considered a contemporary piece of architecture and/or a work of preservation? We want to hear from YOU: pick one side, defend both, or argue that neither holds true… we want YOU to tell us how YOU view the High Line!

- Julie Rosen, PresArch

Most people trace the origins of exposed aggregate concrete back to John J. Earley, who patented his “Method of Producing a Predetermined Color Effect in Concrete and Stucco” with the United States government in 1921. Although this may have led to large-scale production and widespread use of exposed aggregate concrete panels, such structures have been made locally since the beginning of the 20^th century.

By the turn of the 20^th century concrete had been accepted as a viable architectural material and its aesthetic qualities were being explored. Pre-cast concrete often mimicked natural stone; however, many in the concrete business were aware of the aesthetic effects of exposed aggregate concrete. Two well-known examples of early exposed aggregate concrete are Ernest L. Ransome’s work at Stanford University and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois.

Because of the specific skill set needed to create the proper unity of texture, the process of making exposed aggregate concrete remained in the hands of the craftsman in the early 20^th century. To create this aesthetic, the first step was to select the proper coarse aggregate to give the desired color and texture. Whether cast or poured concrete, after a day or two the forms would be removed and the surface abraded or tooled to expose the aggregate. Once the aggregate was agreeably exposed, the surface would be treated with dilute acid to intensify the color.

This was a popular material for railroad and highway structures, and it became the material of choice for many bridges and other public transit structures of the 1910s and 20s. Although this was happening across the country in places like Chicago, Philadelphia, and Cleveland, let’s highlight some structures in the New York City area.

With the development of the state highway system in New Jersey in the 1920s, many bridges were made of exposed aggregate concrete. Remnants can still be seen along New Jersey State Highway Routes 1 thru 20. The bridges are often engraved with the date of construction and the state highway route number.

There are a couple of existing exposed aggregate concrete railroad structures along the Morris & Essex Line of the New Jersey Transit that were constructed as part of a campaign of improvements in the 1910s: the Madison station (c. 1915-16) and the Far Hills station (c. 1914). A unique example of early exposed aggregate along the Babylon Branch of the Long Island Railroad is the station at Forest Hills, constructed in 1911. This elaborate example of early 20^th century exposed aggregate concrete relates to the larger residential complex, Forest Hills Gardens.

Although exposed aggregate concrete appears to have been used in many early 20^th century railroad and highway structures, it took a more rare form in private buildings – few of which can be found in the New York City area. Forest Hills Gardens is one particularly interesting residential example of exposed aggregate concrete c. 1905 in Forest Hills, Queens. This community development was the brainchild of Grosvenor Atterbury, a New York architect, and was praised as “a scene for picturesqueness not equaled anywhere in America and for an artistic use of concrete unequaled in the world.” Many of the residences are composed of large pre-cast concrete block that has been treated to expose the gravel aggregate and crushed red tile, which also covers the roofs. Forest Hills Gardens truly represents a unique example of early 20^th century exposed aggregate, as well as a step toward the commercialization of the process patented over a decade later by John J. Earley.

It is rare to find exposed aggregate concrete structures constructed before the 1930s and 40s, when the Earley process was put into production. Only a few have been highlighted here, most in the New York City area. Do you know of any of these unique structures in your area?

-  Heather Hartshorn, PresArch

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The Tobacco Warehouse and Empire Stores were constructed in the 1860s as a tobacco customs inspection center and coffee and sugar warehouses, respectively. The buildings symbolize the Brooklyn waterfront’s historically prominent shipping industry. Although abandoned and dilapidated, the structures are considered contributing resources to the Fulton Ferry Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

In 2001 and 2003, the National Parks Service provided grants to New York State through the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act (LWCFA), intended for the acquisition and development of public outdoor recreational resources. With the grants, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation stabilized and restored the Tobacco Warehouse, and included it in the Empire Fulton Ferry State Park, providing public access and government protection.  The neighboring Empire Stores were renovated into administrative offices and public restrooms.  All the structures were to have public garden spaces which would be developed with the impending Brooklyn Bridge Park.

However, in 2008 New York State requested that the historic structures be removed from the park as they were not appropriate for public outdoor use. The National Park Service agreed, declaring that the Tobacco Warehouse and Empire Stores were “overlooked” and their inclusion in the Empire Fulton Ferry State Park was a mistake. Noting that park boundaries resulting from LWCFA grants are absolute unless there is a major error or conversion, the National Park Service edited the Empire Fulton Ferry State Park map to omit the Tobacco Warehouse and Empire Stores. Both these parcels and the remaining park land were then given to the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, the latter to be included in the emerging Brooklyn Bridge Park as planned.

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In 2010, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation requested proposals from developers for an adaptive reuse of the Tobacco Warehouse. The only respondent was St. Ann’s, a local, performing-arts group, who proposed to convert the landmarked structure into a private theater space for $15 million.  The plan was approved by the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation and renovations were slated to begin within the year.

In an effort to stop the resulting construction project which would ultimately ruin the historic integrity of the Tobacco Warehouse and render it inaccessible to the public, local community organizations got involved. The Brooklyn Heights Association, Fulton Ferry Landing, and New York Landmarks Conservancy filed a lawsuit in 2010 against the National Parks Service, Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, and St. Ann’s to stop the construction project.  They argued that St. Ann’s efforts to test the soil beneath the structure would require “bringing heavy drilling and boring equipment through one of the relatively small entrances to the building, then operating that drilling equipment inside it, [creating] a real risk of damage to a national historic landmark.”

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A preliminary injunction was granted in the spring of 2011 to temporarily stop the construction, with Judge Eric Vitaliano boldly stating that “the house of cards erected by the defense cannot withstand the gentlest breeze.”  In July, a final verdict was determined, with Judge Vitaliano declaring “it is crystal clear that… [the National Parks Service] acted outside of its legal authority” in redrawing the park boundaries, allowing construction that could potentially damage the historic landmark. The judge ordered the St. Ann’s construction project to cease and the historic structures to be reincorporated into the park, returning the Tobacco Warehouse and Empire Stores to government protection and public use.

What do you think will be the implications of this decision in the preservation community?  What, if anything, does the secret removal of the Tobacco Warehouse and Empire Stores from the parkland illustrate? Does it illustrate a larger movement towards community-based preservation, overseen by local groups?

 - Dianne Pierce Obrien

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Source: Brooklyn Heights Association et al. v. National Park Service et al. United States District Court, Eastern District of New York, Case 11-CV-226-ENV-VVP.