Miami

Old & new at TPA and DCA Airports + Places We’ll Go

Airport design, History, , , , , ,

Welcome to Stuck at The Airport.

Today we take a look back at some sweet photos from 50 years at Tampa International Airport (TPA). We get a look at some snaps from the new 14-gate concourse at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA). And we put some new items on our “Places To Go” list – as soon as we’re allowed.

TPA celebrates 50 years

Tampa International Airport’s Main Terminal complex turned 50 years old on April 15. As part of the celebration, the airport put together this sweet video with great vintage images.  

Reagan National Airport debuts new concourse

There’s a new 14 gate, 225,000-square-foot concourse at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA). 

Gates 46-59 will serve flights for American Airlines’ regional operations at DCA and give travelers amenity-filled waiting areas and direct, enclosed access to aircraft via jetbridges. This is a major upgrade from the previous set-up which involved shuttle buses out to the dreaded Gate 35X.

The new concourse has a panaramic views of the Washington, D.C. skyline, a variety of seating options with power plugs nearby, 14,000 square feet of concession space, four public restrooms, four moving walkways, two mother’s care rooms, an indoor pet relief area, and a new baggage handling system.

Here are some more photos shared by Reagan National Airport.

Places We’ll Go

Once we get the all-clear, we’re going to go. Everywhere.

Here are some places we’re putting on the list.

Celebrating James Brown in Augusta, GA

If soul legend James Brown was still with us, he’d turn 88 on May 3. His hometown of Augusta, GA will be the place to celebrate, with a citywide walking tour and an outdoor birthday block party.

Dollywood Flower & Food Festival

The Dollywood theme park in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee looks like fun. Especially if we could get there between April 23 and June 7 when more than half a million flowers will be blooming for the “Flower & Food Festival.”

Poetry in Miami

The O, Miami Poetry Festival is underway through the month of April, with the goal of having people encounter, enjoy, and engage with poems in unlikely places. One of the projects, Poetry About Town, consists of “call-up” poems about two streets in Miami Dade County.

Poems for the sky at Miami International Airport

Art, , , ,

Mock up of the poem by 3rd grader Nieema Marshall being painted on a rooftop near Miami International Airport

If you’re flying to or from Miami International Airport anytime soon, there’s a new reason to book a window seat on the plane.

Each year during April, National Poetry Month, the annual O, Miami poetry festival tries to fulfill its mission of having everyone in Miami-Dade County encounter a poem at least once during the month.

In the past, program participants have put lines of poetry on bandannas worn by dogs and painted poems inside urinals.

One of this year’s projects is called “Poems To The Sky” – a project by Randy Burman, who last year put poems on the wrappers of popsicles that were handed out for free.

This year Burman is painting poems by local students in letters 40 feet high onto the roof tops of two buildings that sit in the flight paths of planes landing and taking off at Miami International Airport.

“The unknowing window seat occupant who just happens to look out the window as they are taking off to the east or landing from the west is the winner,” said Burman via email. “Having people discovering a poem in a place they never expected it is the ideal.”

Here’s the poem by 3rd grader Nieema Marshall that passengers will see:

I am
from
a place
where
it does
not snow

And here’s the roof poem by 4th grader Tywon Williams:

When I look
at a cloud
I feel like
I am one

Mock up of the poem by 4th grader Tywon Williams that will soon be visible to fliers at Miami International Airport

Poem painting is underway – the pictures here are mock-ups of the finished product – and the goal is have both poems finished by the end of the month, with no plans yet for when the poems might be removed.

In Miami and St. Louis: fresh art at the airport

Art, , , ,

MIA_Nina Surel_Aguizotes

Nina Surel’s Aguizotes

The 2015 edition of Art Basel Miami Beach, is underway through December 7 and Miami International Airport is doing its part by offering Sisterhood – a new series of portrait/landscape paintings by Miami-based Argentine artist Nina Surel that will remain on display through February 2015 in the Central Terminal Gallery, just beyond the Concourse E security checkpoint.

MIA_Nina Surel_Damask

Nina Surel: Damask

Surel begins with photography and painting and adds fabrics, buttons, jewelry, porcelain and resin on wood to create work that “asks us to look within, to investigate and challenge our views of ourselves, the various roles or characters we play, and, moreover, to explore our notions about beauty and the feminine ideal,” said Dr. Yolanda Sanchez, the airport’s director of the Fine Arts and Cultural Affairs Division.

Meanwhile, at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, there’s a new exhibition of 23 works by members of the non-profit Missouri Fiber Artists that will run through April 4, 2015 in the Lambert Gallery, located in the bag claim level of Terminal 1.

The works in 3D Fiber Explorations include everything from paper, wool, felt and linen thread to silk, cotton and other materials.

STL_Kacey Cowdery, Charmaine and Me_

Kacey Cowdery’s Charmaine & Me Commercial dolls dressed in braided floss, silk, strands of pearls and shells

Enjoy!

Travel tibdits: live livery & a pop-up pool

Events, , , ,

United Airlines is scheduled to take delivery of its first Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft in September, but if you’re near your computer early Tuesday morning you’ll get to see a live webcast of the plane – and its livery – as it rolls out of the paint hangar in Everett, Wash.

Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner will look like this when it rolls out of the paint hangar. Photo courtesy Boeing.

The webcast will air on the United Hub website beginning at 5:30 a.m. Pacific Time.

And if you’re cruising around New York City on Tuesday, head to the pool at Union Square (17th & Park). Yes, the pool.

From noon until 6 pm on Tuesday, July 31st, the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau will be hosting a party at a pop-up pool, complete with DJs, salsa dancers, chaise lounges, beach balls, Cuban coffee, a fashion show, culinary demos and more. There’s also the promise of “trip giveaways and swag.”

Sorry, no live webcast of the pool party is planned.

Airport exhibit celebrates history of Miami aviation

Aviation history, Exhibits,

Aviation in Miami: The First 100 Years

A photography exhibit at Miami International Airport (MIA) celebrates one hundred years of flight in Miami, from the first flight in 1911 to the airport’s current status as the second busiest passenger airport in the United States.

The exhibit is in the Central Terminal, Concourse E, just past the security checkpoint.

All photos courtesy History Miami