Author: Julia Lauria-Blum

Welcome to Metropolitan Airport News, ‘Editors Notebook’. I initially intended my first letter to be about my love of road trips and those that have taken me and my family to just about every part of our vast and magnificently diverse country, including a journey my husband and I took across the U.S.A. this past summer by rail, air, and automobile. But I am pre-empting the story of my road trip journey with a topic that doesn’t have much to do with trains, planes, and automobiles, but rather about community, both the metropolitan airport community and, more specifically, the JFK…

When the Port Authority of NY & NJ first began its multi-billion-dollar redevelopment projects at New York metropolitan airports, beginning in 2016 with its groundbreaking at LaGuardia Airport, community outreach was a key element of the agenda at its inception. But before this redevelopment and before this community outreach effort began, many in the community around LaGuardia did not consider the Port Authority to be present. That has taken a complete 180-degree turn over the last six years since the launch of the Port Authority’s airport redevelopment community outreach initiatives and the opening of the LaGuardia Community Outreach Office, the…

Behind every great aviation museum is a great curatorial staff and its volunteers. On Thursday, September 14, the curatorial staff and dedicated team of restoration volunteers at the Cradle of Aviation Museum knocked the ball out of the park at the highly anticipated roll-out and ribbon-cutting ceremony of the newly restored ‘Felix 101’ F-14D Tomcat, now permanently displayed at F14 Tomcat Plaza, outside of the entrance to the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, New York. A large crowd of spectators, museum officials, and aviation enthusiasts gathered before the sleek, twin-engine, swept-wing fighter at its inauguration on this sparkling,…

The TWA Flight Center at JFK has always been an impressive piece of aviation history. From its opening in 1962, the terminal’s breathtaking architectural design and bustling international hub for TWA heralded the beginning of the jet age. Millions of travelers passed through this building over the past 61 years. It is now a protected historic landmark and is still frequently visited by passengers and guests alike. “We are thrilled to display this one-of-a-kind diorama of the TWA Flight Center. It gives guests a real sense of the Flight Center’s place in history as a working airport. Brian Keene took…

View Preview An Interview With Helena Williams, CEO, JFK Millennium Partners With a career spanning over 30 years in a variety of leadership roles in government and with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Long Island Bus, the Long Island Railroad, and as chief executive developing light rail, streetcar, and bus operations and maintenance services for North American Office of Paris-based transportation company, RATP Dev., Helena Williams is an undisputable renaissance woman in the transportation industry. Starting with buses, then trains, Williams’ career in transportation has most recently landed her in the realm of airplanes when, in January 2022, the Vantage…

When William E. Boeing left Yale University in 1903 at 22 and went west to start a new life in Grays Harbor, Washington, for opportunities in the timber industry, little did he know how well the experience would serve him in the fledgling aviation world. William ‘Bill’ Boeing began learning the logging business on his own, starting with land and mineral rights that he had inherited from his mother’s estate. Subsequently, the purchase of more timberland began to add to the wealth he had inherited, and he started to explore new frontiers supplying expeditions to Alaska. In 1908, William moved…

Dogs and humans have shared an extraordinary bond for thousands of years. DNA evidence has shown that dogs are descended from ancient wolves and were domesticated over 100,000 years ago. It is believed that canine service work dates back to the pre-historic age when dogs helped nomads hunt for food. As time went on, their function expanded to herding and guarding farms and crops, and since the earliest human settlements, canines have provided us their protection, their vigilance, and their devoted companionship. Today, they may be classified as ‘Working Dogs.’  Why Working Dogs at Airports? The deep connection that has grown…

For those who love aviation, it enters their lives in its own special way and through their own unique experience. From the first moment humankind gazed skyward, came the yearning to take flight. Perhaps a quote by Wilbur Wright summarizes the quest to break free of earthly boundaries best, “The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space on the infinite highway of the air.” From the dawn of aviation, through its Golden Age and beyond, aviators have challenged themselves to exceed their physical limitations,…

A Collaboration of Art at LaGuardia & Newark Liberty International Airports Public art in airports; in addition to aesthetics, the value of having works of art that are freely accessible to the public is a social, cultural, and economic benefit for travelers, communities, and airport staff. In their traditionally harried and automated environments, airports enrich the travel experience by adding permanent public art to terminals worldwide, personalizing and vitalizing their built environments. Art installations offer a strong sense of time and place, identity, diversity, and a communal history unique to its cultured locale. The very presence of art at airport…

The John F. Kennedy International Air Terminal (JFKIAT) was founded in 1997 when the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey sought a public/private partnership for the existing International Arrivals Building (IAB), which opened in 1957 to accommodate propeller-driven aircraft. Investment banking firm Lehman Brothers, real estate developer LCOR, Inc., Schiphol USA Inc. (an affiliate of Amsterdam-based Royal Schiphol Group, a leading airport operator), teamed up and were rewarded the lease to redevelop the IAB, which opened in May 2001 as Terminal 4 (T4) after undergoing a $1.4 billion redevelopment that transformed the former IAB into a modern and…