History

Souvenir Sunday at SFO Airport: gifts from Alcatraz

Air Travel, Airport shops, History, Souvenir Sunday, , ,

Happy Souvenir Sunday!

If you’re stuck at the airport you can snooze, snack, eavesdrop and, of course, shop for souvenirs.  So each Sunday here at StuckatTheAirport.com we feature fun, local, offbeat,  items you can find at airports for under $10.

This week’s souvenir comes to us (again!!) from Ken Rogers.  He sent along this photo from San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

The jail bird is no doubt a reference to Robert “Birdman of Alcatraz” Stroud , an infamous inmate who bred canaries (at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas, not at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary ) and who was portrayed in the movie The Birdman of Alcatraz, by Burt Lancaster.

Today, Alcatraz Island is part of the National Park Service. In addition to prison facilities, the island has historic gardens, bird colonies, a rich history, and an on-line museum that includes a virtual tour of the prison, audio clips, and photos of all sorts of Alcatraz-related items, including John Anglin’s Fake Head

According to the Alcatraz Island web site:

The Anglin Brothers, Frank Morris and Allen Clayton West made fake heads of cotton, soap and human hair. They placed the painted heads in their beds to cover their escape in 1962.

Did you find a great souvenir last time you were stuck at the airport?

If it’s under $10, “of” the city or region and, ideally, a bit offbeat, then please snap a photo and send it along.

Your souvenir may be featured on a future edition of Souvenir Sunday.

Atlanta International Airport honors Dr. Martin Luther King,Jr. year-round

Exhibits, History, , , ,

Yesterday was the official holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

But you can learn more about the Nobel Peace Prize winner anytime you pass through Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (ATL).

Since the mid-1980’s, the airport has had an exhibit titled Legacy of a Dream…Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The exhibit, on Concourse E, includes family photos, the permit from Dr. King’s March on Washington, the suit Dr. King wore to his meeting with President Lyndon B. Johnson,  Dr. King’s wristwatch and glasses, the transistor radio he took to marches and rallies to listen to news, and other items.

All of the artifacts and photographs were provided by the Martin Luther King Center.

Meeting Aviation Pioneer Jean Batten in Rotorua, New Zealand

Air Travel, Art, Aviation history, Exhibits, History, , ,

Rotorua - blue gree statue

Earlier this week, my short flight from New Zealand’s Rotorua Regional Airport to Auckland was canceled, so I ended up stuck at that tiny airport for a while. Good thing.  The delay gave me a chance to look around.  In addition to finding more than a half-dozen giant statues, I was able to learn a bit about Jean Gardner Batten, a famous New Zealand aviatrix from the 1930’s who was born in Rotorua in 1909 and made a number of record-breaking solo flights across the world,  including the first direct flight from England to New Zealand

Rotorua - jane batten

( Photo: Jean Batten at Rongotai Airport, Wellington, circa 1930s, Photographic Archive, Alexander Turnbull Library).
Unfortunately, when Batten stopped flying she disappeared from public view and later became a reclusive. She died in November 1982 in Palma, Majorca after refusing treatment for a dog bite that had turned septic. She was buried anonymously in a mass grave and for five years, no one even knew she had died.

Later, it was discovered that Batten wanted to have her ashes interred at Auckland International Airport and today, that airport’s international terminal is named in her honor.   I’m going to poke around and see if I can find the spot where they’ve put her ashes.

Rotorua - Jean Batten statue

Jean Batten exhibit at Rotorua Regional Airport

We travel the Spaceways

Events, History, , , , , ,

I’ve got my eyes on the skies this week for the 40th anniversary of the moon landing and the first steps on the moon.

Sadly, I won’t be able to make it Wapakoneta, Ohio to see the World’s Largest Moon Pie

Wapakoneta - Moon Pie Mock up

But at least I’ll be in Seattle on August 15th when the EMP (Experience Music Project) kicks off its newest exhibition:    Spaced Out! The Final Frontier in Album Covers

EMP FROM ANOTHER WORLD

117 space-themed record album covers released between 1940 and 1969—the dawn of the space age— will be display.

Here are some more cool samples:

EMP MEL TORME

EMP SPUTNIK DANCE

The exhibition will be on view at the EMP through Jan. 3, 2010.

Celebrate the 40th anniversary of the moon landing with Nixon and the astronauts

Events, History, , , , ,

July 20th is the 40th anniversary of the moon landing and there will be loads of celebrations and commemorations around the country.  You can read about many of the events on the NASA Web site, but two events of special note are the Summer Moon Festival in Wapakoneta, Ohio (Neil Armstrong’s home town) and Splashdown 2009, on the USS Hornet, the ship tasked with plucking the Columbia capsule containing the three astronauts out of the Pacific Ocean.

The Summer Moon Festival (July 13 -20, 2009) seems especially intriguing, because in addition to the World’s Largest Moon Pie, the town is promising visitors that they’ll get to see (and nibble on?) a life-size statue of an astronaut made entirely of, you guessed it, cheese.

This “sample” cheese astronaut is “just” 40 pounds, but I’m sure you  get the picture…

Wapokaneta, Ohio - Astronaut of cheese(Photo courtesy The Cheese Lady: www.sarahcheeselady.com)

The USS Hornet’s Splashdown 2009 event (July 23-26) will be fun as well, especially if they display this photo of then President Richard Nixon telling jokes to the astronauts while they were in a quarantine capsule (in case they had “moon germs”) on the USS Hornet.

USS HORNET Nixon Telling Borman Joke RGB-1

Photo from the book Hornet Plus Three: The Story of the Apollo 11 Recovery, by Bob Fish.

Stuck at LaGuardia Airport? Visit Louis Armstrong’s home

History,

If you’re heading to New York City this summer, be sure to check out the NYC-ARTS.org Web site being unveiled today by the Alliance for the Arts.

It’s part of an initiative to spread the word about 800 or so New York area cultural organizations and features interactive maps and tons of information about free admission days, discounts, and special events.

Included, for example, is a link to the Louis Armstrong House Museum, which is located in Corona, Queens, about ten minutes from LaGuardia Airport.

Armstrong-close-up

The famed trumpet player’s house contains all the furnishings from when Armstrong and his wife Lucille  lived there and on guided tours visitors can hear audio clips from the recordings Armstrong made of daily life, including practicing his trumpet, enjoying a meal, or talking with his friends.

armstrong house

Through July 12th, the museum is displaying some of the 500 collages Armstrong created while on tour.

Earth to the Universe via Chicago O’Hare Airport

Art, History, ,

ord-jupiter(JUPITER  –  Photo: Travis Rector (U. Alaska Anchorage), Chad Trujillo and the Gemini Altair Team, NOAO / AURA / NSF.)

This is the International Year of Astronomy, recognizing the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s use of a telescope to study the heavens.

So it’s appropriate that Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and the Alder Planetarium have teamed up to host an exhibit that’s out of this world.

From Earth to the Universe is a collection of more than 50 astronomical images, including planets, comets, starts, nebulae and galaxies.  It’s on view in the pedestrian walkway tunnel near the O’Hare CTA Blue Line station.

ord-passengerviewsexhibit-1The exhibit, which is put together by NASA, also makes use of  Microsoft’s new mobile phone technology, Tag, which allows viewers with an Internet enabled mobile camera phone to photograph the bar code on each image and get information about that image from a special mobile website.

ord-fireworks

THE FIREWORKS GALAXY
18 million light-years
 Photo –  R. Boomsma, T. Oosterloo,  F. Fraternali,  R. Sancisi, M.J.
van der Hulst

Denver Int’l Airport: there’s gold in them thar concourses

Art, Exhibits, History, ,

dengoldminerweb_chs-2

Well, as this fellow will tell you, maybe not gold nuggets, but lots of cool stuff about gold and the role it had in the history of Colorado.

den-prospector

In their first foray outside a museum environment, The Colorado Historical Society is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the gold rush to the Rockies with an exhibition at Denver International Airport.

The exhibit commemorates the anniversary of the Pikes Peak Gold Rush of 1859 with documents, photographs, music, poetry, guidebooks, maps, letters, and diaries from prospectors and other participants in the gold rush.

den-cut-out-miner

I’m looking forward to learning the old-time miner’s definitions of the words rapper, rocker, dog house and kibble.

den-rapper-rocker

The Colorado Gold Rush exhibit is on display at Denver International Airport through August, 2009.  You’ll find it stretched out along the walkway leading to  the security-screening checkpoint by the A Gates, so even folks without tickets can enjoy the show.

(All images courtesy of the Colorado Historical Society)

Tiny art at Madison’s Dane County Airport

Art, History, , ,

Starting this Friday, April 24th, the charming Dane County Regional Airport (MSN) in Madison, Wisconsin will begin hosting an exhibition about some tiny things, like this fruit fly embryo.

madison-fruit-fly

“Tiny: Art From Microscopes at UW-Madison” runs through Dec. 31, 2009 and features about 40 images of  cells, molecules and nanoscale structures generated in the course of research by University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists over the last 10 years.

The magnified images include not only fruit-flies, but mice embryos, butterfly and plant cells, and corn kernels.

In the image of the fruit fly embryo above, gene products have been localised: the hairy protein in seven red stripes, the Kruppel domain in green and two giant domains in blue. (Image courtesy: Jim Langeland, Steve Paddock and Sean Carroll.  University of Wisconsin-Madison, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Molecular Biology.)

If images of tiny things don’t grab you,  check out the full-size Corben Super Ace plane suspended from the airport ceiling.

madison-airport-planeThe Corben was a sport aircraft built in Madison in the 1930’s and this one was built by volunteers from the local chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association using original 1930’s plans.

SFO Museum explores history of airline branding

Art, Exhibits, History

sfo-pan-am-bag1950’s Pan Am World Airways flight bag; photo courtesy San Francisco Int’l Airport)

If you’ve got a layover at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) be sure to check out the exhibition of more than 125 vintage and present-day items from 45 airlines, including flight attendant uniforms, airline signage, flight bags, in-flight service items, luggage labels, ticket jackets, safety cards and model aircraft.

sfo-luggage-ticket(Colonial Airways luggage label c. 1925; courtesy SFO airport)

The objects help tell the story of how airlines establish an identity through graphic design, interior design, architecture, fashion, and cuisine.

Painted Wings: A History of Airline Identity is on view at SFO through August 14, 2009 in the Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum. The museum, a gem on its own, is located pre-security on the Departures/Ticketing Level of the International Terminal, next to the entrance to Boarding Area A.  Admission to the museum is free.