Author: Julia Lauria-Blum

Whether you are a seasoned New Yorker or an awestruck newcomer, the magic of NYC is truly captivating. New York City… its appeal is undeniable, with its mixture of culture, celebrated sights, diverse experiences, and its offerings of something for every traveler, whether a first-time visitor, a seasoned voyager, or a local denizen. With four of its five boroughs on islands, it is geographically unique. Composed of Manhattan Island, Staten Island, and Long Island, where Brooklyn and Queens are located, only the Bronx is on the mainland of New York State, and each borough is separated by a series of…

On July 25th, a very special event took place at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City as the museum hosted ‘An Evening with Colonel Eileen Collins” with an exclusive in-person screening of the new documentary film, “Spacewoman.” The event marked two major milestones in spaceflight history; the 25th anniversary since NASA astronaut and Air Force Colonel Collins became the first female space shuttle commander during the STS-93 mission on July 22, 1999, and the 20th year since Collins commanded Shuttle mission STS-114 “Return to Flight” mission on July 26, 2005, after the Columbia tragedy. Collins was also the first…

The old adage “Rome wasn’t built in a day” serves as a reminder that it takes time to create something truly great. And that is certainly the case with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s ongoing $19 billion transformation of JFK International Airport into a world-class gateway, which will include two new terminals, the modernization and expansion of two existing terminals, a new ground transportation center, and a completely new, simplified roadway network. With its two major new terminals set to open in 2026, travelers into and out of JFK International Airport are only a year…

On June 17th, the commemorative return of Pan Am to JFK International Airport marked a significant moment for all those in attendance at Terminal 7. As the story of this inaugural flight is the cover feature on Metropolitan Airport News’ July issue, Re-Tracing the Transatlantic, I recently asked Louise Koch, one of the passengers on the 12-day ‘Tracing the Transatlantic’ flight, what it meant to her and her sister Cheryl. For this month’s Editor’s Notebook, I’d like to share Louise’s reply with you, in her own words. Crossing the Transatlantic With Pan Am and What It Meant to Me By…

On a misty morning this past June, a white Boeing 757 taxied toward Terminal 7 at JFK International Airport. Inside the terminal’s Gate 5 waiting area, a huddle of enthusiastic passengers and spectators stood by the gate’s airside window overlooking the tarmac, eagerly awaiting the jetliner’s arrival. As the airplane neared the gate, the lettering on the forward section of its fuselage revealed the name ‘PAN AM’, and on its tail fin was the prominent blue ‘Pan Am Globe’. The return of the iconic airline Pan Am to Kennedy Airport that day, nearly 34 years after the carrier ceased operations…

On June 17, the return of Pan Am to JFK International Airport marked a pivotal moment in aviation history, as the airport undergoes a massive $19 billion renovation to restore JFK to the iconic status it enjoyed during the Pan Am years. Though a misty fog descended upon the airport that morning, it did not dampen the pioneering spirit reminiscent of Pan Am’s early years when the first private chartered jet commemorative Pan Am journey called, ‘Pan Am: Tracing the Transatlantic”, taxied to Gate 5 at Terminal 7 and took off from JFK Airport with 35 passengers in a Boeing…

After boarding a plane for a recent flight to Los Angeles out of JFK, I was admiring some of the liveries of the adjacent aircraft from my window seat. Off to my right, I noticed a red JetBlue A320 with colors that stood out from the rest of the standard ‘blue’ liveries and trademark patterns on the airline’s fleet lined up at their departure gates. Airline liveries are the unique designs, insignia, or graphics on aircraft that provide a distinctive branding that represents an airline’s image or identity. Special liveries are exclusive paint schemes often used to celebrate events or…

Airports are defined as any area of land or water used or intended for landing or takeoff of aircraft. This includes an area used or intended for airport buildings and facilities, as well as rights of way together with the buildings and facilities. The primary legal framework defining airports in the U.S. is found in Title 49 of the United States Code (49 USC 47102), categorizing airports by type of activity, including commercial service, primary, reliever, cargo service, and general aviation airports.  In defining these five categories, the FAA classifies Commercial Service Airports as publicly owned airports with at least 2,500…

On November 25, 1934, The New York Times headline read… ‘La Guardia Won’t Land in Newark and Insists Line Fly Him to City from Rival Field ‘ Once characterized by its impressive size and accommodations in its infancy, LaGuardia Airport was the first commercial airport to be built in New York City. Its construction was among the largest endeavors of the New Deal’s WPA (Works Progress Administration) and it included a landplane field and a seaplane division. At its opening in 1939, the then named New York Municipal-LaGuardia Field had six of the largest hangars in the world and featured…

Physical or digital archives are historical ‘memoirs’ of sorts. They are factual narratives that chronicle or document a specific time period, event, or theme. If you’ve ever sought out information on a particular topic, image, person, or event by searching for (or ‘googling’) it on the internet, the abundance of material that pops up on the screen can be astonishing in its scope and its depth, especially when researching a more obscure subject or lesser known history. How it physically gets up there on the computer or phone screen is a whole other story, and I can say from personal…