Save Marine Air Terminal At LaGuardia
As you read this, we learn that the pioneering Marine Air Terminal (MAT) at LaGuardia Airport, where all scheduled international aviation in New York City took off in 1940, that we as an air cargo publication, if you can believe it, were miraculously lucky enough to save from destruction in 1980, well, the same Marine Air Terminal, i.e. the building that attained Landmark Preservation status, could be in immediate danger of being thoughtlessly altered out of existence by the airport operator The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. This plan, as we read their presser if enacted, endangers the most historically important commercial aviation structure in The United States of America, dating back to the beginnings of international aviation serving our country’s greatest metropolis New York City. Here is what the presser states, reiterating it twice: “The plan calls for replacing the 85-year-old Terminal A to meet demand and continued passenger growth while respecting the building rotunda's landmark status. “A top-to-bottom rebuilding of Terminal A at LaGuardia while preserving the landmark rotunda.” MAT is comprised of a central circular core of two stories with an attic from which a rectangular entrance pavilion and two symmetrically opposed one-story wings project. The presser clearly states the plan is to save the central core and erase the rest of the building? Press Release is clear and dangerous given Port Authority history at MAT since 1948. We are grateful for the opportunity to remind everyone of what the LaGuardia Airport’s operator inflicted upon this pioneering facility in 1952. During 1940-42, Artist James Brooks as part of the WPA Federal Arts program painted the mural titled “Flight” on the upper walls of the MAT lobby. ‘Flight” at 237.5 circular and 12 feet high was the largest work of the WPA program. The Port Authority in 1952-3 in that clean-up program painted over and covered the entire mural with drab grey wall paint. “Flight” remained covered and forgotten, a giant blank wall in a public space and it stayed that way for nearly three decades when, as Air Cargo News, we discovered LaGuardia’s Hidden Art Treasure and devised a plan to bring it back. Now in 2025, it appears, if we read their presser correctly, the Port Authority wants to alter and change the MAT again, this time from the outside, after they had once upon a time, changed it from the inside out when they erased “Flight” from the upper Rotunda walls. Keeping the entire MAT intact, observation decks and all, as it was built in 1939 is in our view essential, and matters to aviation history for one simple reason; here after World War II the MAT served every international flag airline that launched ongoing scheduled aerial service as the one and only scheduled way in and out of the world’s greatest city. MAT was the USA connection to Europe from 1940 until the opening of Idlewild Airport, (now JFK International) in 1948. Airlines from around the world serving New York City and thus the United States of America, operated via this tiny art-deco jewel of a building. BOAC (now British Airways/IAG), Air France, Trans World Airlines, SAS (Scandinavian), American Overseas Airways, Pan American and countless others all began their operations here. Designers of MAT were Delano and Aldrich who also created most of the original LaGuardia Airport that opened in 1939. Worth noting, a few years prior to their LaGuardia Airport effort Delano and Aldrich designed and built the Pan Am Flying boat base at Dinner Key-Coconut Grove, Florida that opened in 1936. Today that Dinner Key Building, sister to the MAT at LGA, remains in full use intact, whilst serving the City of Miami as Miami City Hall.
