TWA Hotel
One Idlewild Dr., Queens
The TWA Hotel at JFK is the kind of spot you stay at for the experience. In this case, the experience of sleeping in an airport hotel that was once a real-life terminal. Finnish industrial designer Eero Saarinen was responsible for the original mid-century modern structure that operated as a terminal until 2002, and the whole space still smacks of golden-age-of-air-travel novelty. While TWA functions fine as an airport hotel, it’s the details like the bar (designed to mimic a ’60s cocktail lounge inside an airplane cabin), guest rooms that would look at home on the set of Mad Men, mid-century terrazzo bathrooms, and Paris Café—helmed by Jean-Georges Vongerichten—that has curious travelers flocking in.