Airport Lounge

It even has the original name for TWA on the side of the building: Trans-Continental and Western Air.

A bunch of men peering through gloryholes “to kibitz the erection” of the building.

WTF?!?

I am very grateful when I get to use lounges, but they are not what I would call chic. They have cheap buffets, free booze, nice bathrooms, and I am so appreciative of them, but there isn't any glamour for the most part. There are the ultra luxe ones that Price Harry uses which are private living rooms and staff at LAX - those are pretty chic.

In the USA, you mean, R3?

Yes - the USA. The lounges in big European cities tend to be more decadent like the Virgin lounge in Heathrow.

When I still had a Delta AmEx, I got a comp pass to a Centurion Lounge when they first opened. It was my first time in a lounge, so I was impressed. Then I paid for a pass to an American Airlines lounge a couple of years later, and it was like being in a bus station.

[quote] Then I paid for a pass to an American Airlines lounge a couple of years later, and it was like being in a bus station.

Exactly - you can get jaded by getting too used to lounges. It makes the general seating area for the poors feel like skid row.

What a wonderful building. I stepped into it once in college when I heard that it would be lost (and to that dreary Philip Morris Building, too.) It was theatrical and had a strong sense of movement, playing to travel as something special, a bit exotic, luxurious.

Most airport lounges now seem to aspire to look like a lounge/cafe of a better range of one of the better gym chains. There's not much special about them other than some calm and remove from the fray.

Delta's lounges are mostly tiny over-crowded over-scented spaces, jam packed with maskless travelers stuffing their faces with crappy food. Although I am able to use them, I rarely do. The gate area is usually nicer. I pooped into the one in West Palm Beach yesterday and it was absolutely disgusting.

[quote]I pooped into the one in West Palm Beach yesterday and it was absolutely disgusting.

Your contribution added nothing to an atmosphere already lacking, R9

While I do not remember that particular airline building, which according to OP's link was demolished in 1978 in favor of an office building, the office building the replaced it did have a large "City Ticket Office" on the retail level where all the major airlines had desk agents. Went there often to get ticket printed, change flights, seats, etc... before you could do all of that online.

LOL, r10!

Actually, had I actually pooped, it would have most definitely added to the atmosphere... in an even worse way!

I used to look at that building, so streamlined and sleek, with those imposing eagles on top, all of it promoting travel by air, yet dwarfed by a massive railroad station across the street. It always seemed beautiful but out of place, out of date before its time.

Obviously, no planes would take off anywhere near it. So all it really was was some kind of midtown waiting room. Sort of superfluous from the beginning.

But so beautiful. I walked by decades later, and it was gone, replaced by yet another featureless glass box. You’d never know it had ever even been there.

Those eagles are reportedly now guarding another inert glass box in New Jersey.

Flying commercial lost its glamor in the 1980s. Now, it's just like a flying bus, with all the riff-raff jammed into increasingly-smaller seats (as Americans get larger!).

How luxurious to drop off your baggage at the start of a journey, not to have to haul it across a vast parking lot to a shuttle bus to an airport terminal to airport subway to a departure terminal (never mind skipping over all the the security measures.)

Cross-section view of the Airlines Terminal Building with dis/embarkation points for buses from/to the airport and a baggage mezzanine.

This is the new ultra lux PS formerly Private Suites at LAX. They drive you to the gate and everything is done for you. This was a big project for LAX a few years ago. Again, I saw the logo on a vehicle dropping Harry off at a plane when we was "flying commercial" to Diana's memorial. I would like to check these out.

There's the private airline lounges, but there's two tier above those: the airline lounges for VIPS and Stars, and above those private services where you don't interact with the public at all, and you're checked in your private suite at the airport (Heathrow has blocks of them set apart from the main airport buildings) to which you've been ferried by limo. I forget the name of the service, but it's used by all the arsehole arab and oligarch familes, and super-rich generally. The limo then takes you to your private jet or -- if a commercial flight via some other means.

From r16's post:

[quote]Perfect for groups, families, or those seeking the most luxurious way to travel

Hell to the no! People want to use these type of amenities to GET AWAY from families.