AVIATION: Bigger Than Grand Central

New York’s Idlewild international airport, once a shantytown of jumbled wooden buildings, is rapidly taking shape as the world’s best—as well as biggest—air terminal. Last week Eastern Air Lines opened a $20 million, four-acre terminal, the largest ever built for use of a single airline. Last month United Airlines opened its $14.5 million terminal. By 1963 U.S. lines will build five more of their own terminals, completing Idlewild’s $150 million decentralized Terminal City passenger complex.

Eastern’s new terminal, a three-story expanse of granite, concrete and emerald-tinted glass, is nearly double the floor space for the entire Newark Airport building, which is used by eleven airlines. Its main lobby is bigger than the main concourse of either Grand Central or Pennsylvania stations. To handle the 2.3 million passengers expected to move through it next year on 104 daily flights, the terminal is equipped with inclined ramps instead of stairways, a null electronic flight-information board, three-lane enclosed auto driveways that lead into the first and second floors, a dining room, cocktail lounge, and arcades for shops. Jutting out on either side of the terminal are two null loading arcades that can handle as many as 24 aircraft at a time.