One of the city's most spectacular landmarks of modern architecture, Eero Saarinen's 1962 Trans World Airlines terminal at JFK International Airport in Queens, may be converted to a boutique hotel, according to an article by Andrew Grossman and Eliot Brown in today's edition of The Wall Street Journal.

The article said that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey issued a request for qualifications last week and hopes to have construction finished two years after it signs a contract with a developer. The agency hopes that a small hotel can be built in the space between the old terminal and the new JetBlue building behind it, the article said, adding that "the interior of the TWA space would serve as an entry way and lobby for the hotel with restaurants and shops.

"After a bankrupt TWA was bought by American Airlines in 2001," the article said, and JetBlue Airways eventually building a new facility around and behind it but the old building has since sat empty.

Attempts to find a tenant failed and in 2008 the Port Authority spent $20 million to remove asbestos and restore the interior.

The article quoted Chris War, the authority's executive director, as stating that "you can have perhaps the hippest, coolest-looking front office to a boutique hotel that serves a very special and unique air traveling market," adding "it's not a big airport hotel" and "it's going to be a niche-market boutique-style hotel with about 150 rooms."

"With his Terminal 5 for TWA at what was then called Idlewild Airport, midcentury master Eero Saarinen made soaring bird buildings cool when Santiago Calatrava was still using crayons," observed Joey Arak at ny.curbed.com today, adding that "as the wrecking ball has come calling for other groovy jet-age buildings at JFK, landmark status has helped this one survive, even though it's been closed for 10 years and JetBlue built a brand new Terminal 5 right behind it."

"The terminal had a futuristic air; The interior had wide glass windows that opened onto parked TWA jets; departing passengers would walk to planes through round, red-carpeted tubes. It was a far different structure and form than Saarinen's design for the current main terminal of Washington Dulles International Airport, which utilized mobile lounges to take passengers to airplanes," the article said, adding that it is "the airport's most famous landmark (as well as being a National Historic Landmark)."

"This building," the article continued, "was the first airline terminal to have closed circuit television, a central p/a system, baggage carousels, an electronic schedule board and precursors to the now ubiquitous baggage weigh-in scales....The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had proposed converting the main portion of the building into a restaurant and conference center, but some architectural critics opposed this move."

In 2004, the dormant terminal hosted an art exhibition that featured the work of 19 artists from 10 countries who were to draw inspiration from the terminal's architecture. It was to run from October 1, 2004 to January 31, 2005 but was canceled after it was vandalized at the opening night gala.

In 2004, the Municipal Art Society of New York succeeded in nominating the facility to the National Trust for Historic Preservation's list of the 11 Most Endangered Places in America.