Friday, September 29, 2023

TWA

 


















The TWA Terminal at John K. Kennedy Airport. Designed by renowned architect Eero Saarinen, the building was commissioned as part of a major expansion of JFK (then named Idlewild Airport) in the mid-1950s to accommodate the Post WWII boom in commercial air travel. With its fluid, swooping Neo-Futurist curves, the building captures the sensation of flight and the optimism of the Jet Age.

The terminal opened in 1962, though unfortunately Saarinen did not live to see its completion, having passed away in 1961. Also unfortunately, despite having been built as a symbol of the jet age, it quickly proved to be too small to serve the increasing size and number of jet airliners, especially after Boeing introduced its mammoth 747 in 1970. The terminal eventually closed in 2001, but it had been named a New York City Landmark and placed in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, and so avoided demolition. In 2019, the renovated terminal re-opened as a hotel.

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

Monday, September 18, 2023

Wednesday, September 6, 2023

Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

 




























Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary was founded in 1855 to serve the needs of the burgeoning Irish and German Catholic population of Red Hook, Brooklyn, The name of the parish refers to a story in the Gospel of Luke in which the pregnant Virgin Mary visits with her cousin Elizabeth, who is also pregnant, with the future John the Baptist. According to the story, Fetus John the Baptist sense Fetus Jesus within Mary, and starts to leap around Betsy's womb.

Anyway . . . This is the third building for the parish. The congregation quickly outgrew the original building, and the second, larger church was destroyed by fire. The third church, this one, was consecrated in 1898. The Romanesque and Gothic Revival stone church is constructed of Manhattan schist, the native bedrock stone of New York City. The architect is not identified in any church history, but is possibly the work of Thomas Houghton.