During our
time in New York at Christmas we made plans with friends to spend a day in
Brooklyn brewery hopping. The day of fun
would be capped off with a stay in the newish TWA Hotel at JFK Airport. We’ve had our eye on staying here someday
and Christmas vacation was the perfect time for a visit since we were all ready
in New York. Usually we drive from Illinois
to visit our families, and were planning to do so again this year, but then we
came to the realization that our last night of the trip was going to be spent
AT AN AIRPORT so why drive?
We met Rich
and Amanda at the hotel before venturing off in an Uber-filled trip around
Brooklyn. Dave grew up near New York City
but never ventured into Brooklyn.
Breweries
visited:
Interboro: Kinda what you want and expect from your first Brooklyn
Brewery experience. Graffiti style art in
a light industrial area filled with garages and metal shops. Music inside was edgy hip-hop and you could
see into the whole brewing section. Beers were very good and the staff was nice
and patient with us as we obsessed over building perfect flights.
Grimm: A few blocks away was the polar opposite of Interboro. Grimm was in a bright and airy building with
large communal tables, high ceilings, and an overall cheery feel with some
colorful artwork. Alt-Indie was the
music choice and beers were served in stemmed glassware.
Arrogant Swine: Not a brewery…. Arrogant Swine is a bar/restaurant in an industrial
section that looks to be going under some slow gentrification. Holly and Dave requested this stop because
they caught it on a food show that put the spotlight on their waffle-iron mac
and cheese. Atmosphere was similar to
Interboro’s but with less appealing bathrooms. Most of the food was excellent.
KCBC: Of course Dave loved the place because they had a reggae DJ
spinning. Great spot that had a neighborhood
hangout kinda feel with a modern coffee shop décor (subway tile and wood accent
walls). Beer was great and ran the
spectrum of styles. This was the kind of
brewery we could kill a whole afternoon in.
Folksbier: After a very long car ride (distance and traffic) we
finally made it Folksbier. Their focus
was traditional styles of beer with a twist here-ot-there. The tap room was in the style of a small
neighborhood German beerhall. We ate
some hipster brand popcorn they were sell because the BBQ lunch had finally
worn off.
Other Half: This is where the people were. Other Half had a open floorpan filled with
people. The lighting was low, the place
was packed, and they were pouring a ton of beer. Their beer choices were many and we enjoyed
almost everything we had – Dave ordered a taster of some over-flavored barrel
age stout that just stuck in your mouth.
TWA Hotel
The old TWA
terminal in New York’s JFK airport was transformed into the
boutique TWA Hotel in 2019. The
Eero Saarinen designed building is reason enough to visit with its curved
lines, little hidden alcoves, and tunnels accessing wings of the property. The flight center opened in 1962 and
everything is crafted to bring as much of that period to life as possible. Staff had replica period uniforms, there
were rotary phones in the rooms, and the music in public areas was all
1960’s.
Check-in
occurred at the old airline check-in desk with either an agent or computer
terminal. We arrived before our room was
ready and our checked luggage was put on the conveyor to store in the back
room. We booked runway rooms and looked
over the International Terminal. We watched planes come and go all hours of the
day and night. It wasn’t noisy since
they use the second-thickest glass in the country (The Pentagon has the
thickest).
Branding is
everywhere. The gift shop had a ton of
fun merchandise! There is no chance you will forget you are at the TWA
Hotel. One odd item in our room was the
trash mat. Yes, a mat on the desk for
your trash and recycle items. Yuck! Dave works in the hotel supply industry and
passed the photo around the office. No
one has seen this before and thankfully it does not appear to be a trend. There are plenty of TWA souvenirs to buy in
the gift shop.
There’s a
lot to do here for a day. We noticed
many people were visiting the hotel just for drinks on a date night. You can
look at several old cars around the property, play in the Twister Room, get
pictures texted to you from the photo booth, look at the replica 1960’s living
room and Howard Hughes’ office. You can dine in the Sunken Lounge and watch the
old departure board create pixelated art every few minutes.
The public
spaces were designed with Instagram in mind.
Many people were at the hotel just for a date night.
We were
excited when it was time for our reservation at/in Connie – an old airplane converted
into a cocktail lounge. Of course they
ran out of the plastic TWA wings that came with the martini.
In the
morning we braved the cold and watched the airport action from the rooftop
heated pool (note: Not a hot tub so not
too comfy in 30 degree weather. Also, we didn’t bring our phones to the pool in the morning so we only have the night photo.). For
food, the hotel offers a full-service restaurant, a quick service counter, and
an intelligentsia coffee stand.
This was a very
fun hotel stay and we recommend checking the public spaces next time you’re at
JFK.
