Airport Hotel
The former Ramada Plaza JFK Hotel is Building 144. The hotel, with 478 rooms, was the only on-site hotel at JFK Airport. It was previously a part of Forte Hotels and previously the Travelodge New York JFK. After the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996, relatives of TWA 800 passengers and crew, as well as the media, gathered at the hotel. Many waited until the remains of their family members had been recovered, identified and released. For several years the PANYNJ had a ground lease to the hotel's owners, Westmont Hospitality Group. A spokesperson for PANYNJ said that Westmont Hospitality Group decided not to renew the lease for 2009. After the lease expired in late 2008, the PANYNJ became the owners of the building. PANYNJ hired Highgate Holdings to operate the hotel for one year. In 2009 the PANYNJ stated in its preliminary 2010 budget that it was closing the hotel due to "declining aviation activity and a need for substantial renovation" and that it expected to save $ 1 million per month. The hotel was scheduled to close on December 1, 2009. Almost 200 employees were to lose their jobs. Lisa Fickenscher of Crain's New York Business said that a hotel industry expert said "he Port Authority has been trying to build a hotel at JFK for years. Most major global airports have hotels that are attached to the airport. New York doesn’t have that."
Read more about this topic: John F. Kennedy International Airport
Famous quotes containing the words airport and/or hotel:
“It was like taking a beloved person to the airport and returning to an empty house. I miss the people. I miss the world.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“The hotel was once where things coalesced, where you could meet both townspeople and travelers. Not so in a motel. No matter how you build it, the motel remains the haunt of the quick and dirty, where the only locals are Chamber of Commerce boys every fourth Thursday. Who ever heard the returning traveler exclaim over one of the great motels of the world he stayed in? Motels can be big, but never grand.”
—William Least Heat Moon [William Trogdon] (b. 1939)