Good morning. It’s Friday. Today we’ll find out why aviation buffs and preservationists are concerned about the future of a terminal at LaGuardia Airport that opened just before World War II. We’ll also find why the Brooklyn borough president is running for a new job — and why he may face a challenge from a candidate backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.
Linda Freire loved the building where she worked for 12 years when she was in her 20s and 30s. “Walking in every morning, it was like when I would go to visit the Louvre in Paris or the Vatican in Rome,” she said. Her office was at LaGuardia Airport — not in the main terminals, which former President Joe Biden would later liken to “a third-world country,” but in LaGuardia’s Marine Air Terminal. That is an elegantly proportioned building with a spacious rotunda that handled the trans-Atlantic arrivals and departures in LaGuardia’s early days. The building is a landmark Art Deco relic from an era when commercial air travel “had that sense of excitement, adventure and risk,” said Freire, who was the shuttle operations manager for Pan American World Airways when Pan Am filed for bankruptcy in 1991 and is now the chairwoman of the Pan Am Museum Foundation. Aviation buffs like Freire and preservationists sounded alarms after noticing a sentence in a Port Authority news release that said the agency’s latest 10-year, $45 billion capital plan would include “replacing the 85-year-old Terminal A.” The news release also mentioned a “top-to-bottom rebuilding of Terminal A while preserving the landmark rotunda.” The Port Authority said the project would complete the remaking of the airport and would “make a vastly improved experience at LaGuardia even better.” But the preservationists worried that its mention of an 85-year-old terminal referred to the Marine Air Terminal, which was dedicated in March 1940 — 85 years ago. “It’s part of aviation history,” said Edward Trippe, a son of a founder of Pan Am. “It’s a very important building.” Some preservationists have spoken at hearings that the Port Authority has held in recent days to gather public comments on the capital plan. “They listened to my comment and they went on to the next person,” said Julia Blum, a former archivist at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, N.Y., and the editor of Metropolitan Airport News. “I think it’s wonderful, all the things they’ve done with the airports. But this is part of it.” Josh Stoff, the curator of the Cradle of Aviation Museum, said that the Port Authority planners were “very vague on what they want to do.” After noting that the Marine Air Terminal was “the only pre-World War II terminal still in operation,” he added: “All they said was they’d save the rotunda. I don’t even know if that means they’ll save the outside of the building.” Geoffrey Arend, the editor and publisher of Air Cargo News Flying Typers, which covers the aviation industry, said he was “very worried” about what the Port Authority might have in mind. Perhaps the design would “take the two wings off the building, maybe take the front off the building and just keep the lobby.” The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Marine Air Terminal in 1980, noting that it was “the only surviving American airport terminal dating from ‘the golden age of the flying boat.’” That was a reference to Pan Am’s clipper ships, seaplanes that taxied up to a dock after landing and sailed away from it before takeoff, lifting into the air in open water some distance from the airport. The Clippers made trans-Atlantic travel a reality for ordinary passengers. They were slow by modern standards — with a top speed of 200 miles per hour, they took almost a full day to fly to Europe, with a refueling stop along the way. But that was revolutionary. Europe was 10 days to two weeks away by ocean liner.
“As built, the Marine Air Terminal had a spare, open feeling — a circle at the water’s edge,” the architecture writer Christopher Gray noted. In the rotunda inside was a circular mural called “Flight,” by James Brooks, that was painted over in the 1950s and restored in the 1970s. “We do not want to see another historic Pan Am terminal torn down,” said Freire, referring to the former Pan Am Worldport at John F. Kennedy International Airport, which was demolished in 2013. (The Worldport, which had a huge elliptical roof, operated as Terminal 3 at J.F.K. and had been used by Delta Air Lines after Pan Am shut down.) “Pan Am was the heart and soul of aviation development, especially international aviation, in this country,” Freire said. “We can’t lose this history.” A Port Authority spokesman said by email that the Marine Air Terminal building “is not going anywhere and will remain fully intact.” He said that the reference in the news release to “85-year-old Terminal A” was “inaccurate.” The rebuilding is planned for Terminal A, the concourse with six gates adjacent to the marine building. It dates only to the 1980s and is not a landmark, he said. WEATHER Clouds are expected today, along with a high of 34. There is a chance of snow tonight, followed by a mix of rain and snow. The low will be around 31. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Monday (Immaculate Conception). The latest New York news
We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. A Brooklyn borough president’s run for the House just got harder.
Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president, became the first major candidate to run for the House seat being vacated by Representative Nydia Velázquez. He said he decided to run to fight President Trump’s attempts to curb immigration and cut federal safety net programs, and “to push the party” — the Democratic Party — “to the left.” But in a sign of the party’s changing contours, Reynoso will probably face a candidate backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, a farther-left faction that is looking to test its strength in the wake of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s victory last month. Mamdani and the D.S.A. have privately signaled that Reynoso is not their choice. Several democratic socialist lawmakers are exploring running for the seat, including Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán, State Senator Kristen Gonzalez and Assemblywoman Claire Valdez. State Senator Julia Salazar, one of the first officeholders from the New York City chapter of the D.S.A., said that she had ruled out a candidacy after considering it. My colleague Benjamin Oreskes writes that the district, which straddles western Brooklyn and Queens, may provide one of the best opportunities to expand the D.S.A.’s ranks in Congress. It includes neighborhoods like Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Bushwick and Ridgewood where young voters have regularly elected socialists to state and local office in recent years. The district, which is more than a third Latino, voted overwhelmingly for Mamdani, a D.S.A. member. Reynoso said that he was not a socialist but was not antagonistic toward the D.S.A. He backed Mamdani as one of three preferred candidates for the June mayoral primary. Reynoso became the Brooklyn borough president in 2022, succeeding Mayor Eric Adams, after eight years on the City Council. He said that he had dreamed of serving in Congress since he was a college student and that he was particularly motivated to try to protect programs like food stamps and Section 8 housing vouchers that his family had relied on. METROPOLITAN DIARY Nice Coat
Dear Diary: I was walking down Madison Avenue one weekend when I heard a woman call out. “Excuse me,” she said. “I love your raincoat.” I turned and thanked her. “You’re welcome,” she said. “I have the same one.” — Davida Bagatelle Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Lauren Hard and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
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