airport exhibits

At PHL Airport: a collection of collections

Exhibits, Uncategorized, , , ,

The exhibition program at Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) is offering an exhibition featuring a wonderful collection of collections.

Personal Collection – Private Obsessions features an assortment of private collections that are borrowed from residents of the Greater Philadelphia area and from employees at Philadelphia International Airport.

Passengers traveling through PHL between now and May 2024 will see some collections representing nostalgic objects, such as handbags, sewing thimbles, antique glass, airline silverware, and John F. Kennedy ephemera.

Other collections feature more familiar objects from popular culture—ice cream scoops, bobbleheads, bottle caps, Funko Pop! figures, travel magnets, and Philadelphia Eagles hats.

The exhibit notes point out that while the activity of collecting is a universal experience, each collection is as personal and unique as each object and often represents a specific remembrance or story.

“This is the 4th exhibition of collections that we have presented over the past 25 years of the exhibitions program,” said Leah Douglas, PHL’s Director of Guest Experience. “The current installation is by far the most extensive one to date and it is proving to be a big hit with our guests and employees,” she said.

Personal Collections – Private Obsessions is on view at Philadelphia International Airport through May 2024 and is located between Terminals C and D accessible to ticketed passengers.

What do you collect?

It seems everyone collects something. Or many things. Please share a note about your collections in the comments section below.

Museum Monday: PHL celebrates The Sound of Philadelphia

Music, , ,

PHL exhibit honors Philadelphia International Records (PIR)

An exhibit celebrating and highlighting the 50th anniversary of Philadelphia International Records (PIR), a record label dubbed “The Sound of Philadelphia,” is now on view at Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), near Terminal A-East.

The label created by songwriting duo Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, along with collaborator Thom Bell, released hits by artists such as Teddy Pendergrass, Patti LaBelle, Lou Rawls, The O’Jays, and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes.

Chuck Gamble, the nephew of PIR co-founder Kenny Gamble (first photo), was on hand for the ribbon-cutting, as was co-founder Leon Huff (below, in the checked shirt).

Airport jokes & other travel tidbits

Fun Stuff,

Monday was National Tell a Joke Day and a few airports around the country shared some funny bits via Twitter. If we missed yours, please let us know and we’ll add it in.

We also spotted this colorful tweet from Pittsburgh International Airport, a fun Monday verse from Tampa International Airport, and a quick art tour from the SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport.

And take a look at this great agricultural exhibit at Monterey Regional Airport (MRY) in California. The exhibit tells the story of the area’s agricultural heritage with photos, informational panels, and exhibit cases. As a nice bonus, the airport is offering free parking validation to those who want to just stop by and see the exhibit.

If/Then: Women in Aviation Statues at Dallas Love Field

Exhibits, , ,

In 2021. Dallas’ NorthPark Center will present #IfThenSheCan – The Exhibit, which will feature 123 3-D printed statues of contemporary women working in the STEM professions of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

In the meantime, 15 of those statues are on display through March 9, 2021, at Dallas Love Field. Included in the group are 10 statues that portray women who work in aviation or aerospace-related fields, including astrophysicists, a rocket scientist, and an aviation maintenance technician.

To create the statues each subject stands in a scanning booth that uses 89 cameras and 25 projectors to generate a 3D image. A special machine then takes up to ten hours to slowly build up the layers of acrylic gel that make the statue.

Here’s a list of the women whose statues are in the DAL pop-up exhibit.

1. Adriana Bailey – Atmospheric Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research
2. Charita Castro – Social Science Researcher, Office of the US Trade Representative
3. Xyla Foxlin – Engineer, Entrepreneur, and Nonprofit Director, Beauty and the Bolt
4. Miriam Fuchs – Telescope Systems Specialist, East Asian Observatory
5. Joyonna Gamble-George – Health Scientist, National Institutes of Health
6. Erika Hamden – Professor of Astrophysics, University of Arizona
7. Kelly Korreck – Astrophysicist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
8. Adele Luta – Scientist and Innovator, Oceaneering
9. Jenn Makins – STEM Educator and Inventor, Parish Episcopal School
10. Amanda Masino – Biologist, Professor and Research Director, Huston-Tillotson University
11. Tiffany Panko – Women’s Health Researcher, Rochester Institute of Technology
12. Jasmine Sadler – Dancing Rocket Scientist and STEAM Entrepreneur, The STEAM Collaborative
13. Nikki Sereika – Aviation Maintenance Technician, Southwest Airlines
14. Nicole Sharp – Aerospace Engineer and Science Communicator, Sharp Science Communication Consulting
15. Mary Beth Westmoreland – Vice President, Amazon

And here’s a short time-lapse video of the statues being installed.

Guitars at Phoenix Sky Harbor Intl Airport

Art, , , ,

A cool new exhibit about guitars is underway at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX)

Phoenix is home to the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery and right now passengers traveling through Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport are being treated to an exhibit featuring nine hand-crafted guitars, including both acoustic and electric style.

Exhibition highlights include Scott Walker’s hand-painted “patina” guitar (above), which has wood body that resembles oxidized metal. Also on display: an unusual 26-string harp-guitar by William Eaton and an electric mandolin by Joe Vallee, whose instruments are collected by prominent musicians like Steve Miller.

Visitors to the PHX Airport Museum exhibit will also find displays of the guitar-making process. Parts of a guitar are presented in an exploded view showing how a guitar is constructed. And the various stages of shaping the wood components of a guitar are explained.

Exploded view of an acoustic guitar, courtesy of the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery

Phoenix Airport Museum’s exhibition, Shaping Sound: The Art of Guitar Making, is on view in two display cases at Terminal 4, level 2 near ticketing through May 2020. 

The 30-year old Phoenix Airport Museum has more than 900 pieces in its collection. The museum presents exhibits featuring both items from the collection and from area artists in several galleries throughout the airport.

Museum Monday: Insects at San Francisco Int’l Airport

Museum Monday, Museums, , , ,

San Francisco International Airport (SFO) has bugs!

But don’t worry. The bugs are all under glass and are part of a new exhibit hosted by the SFO Museum.

The exhibit, titled The Intriguing World of Insects includes more than 1000 specimens, fine art photography and rare books. There’s also an atomical model of Musca domestica, the inscect we know better as the house fly.

Display drawer of camouflage insect specimens – courtesy SFO Museum

Why an exhibit of insects?

Besides that fact that they look really pretty and non-threatening inside the cases, insects, the exhibit notes tell us, are the most diverse macroscopic organisms on the planet.

Researchers have identified over one million species of insects – so far – and estimate that five to thirty million more insects are waiting to be discovered.

In fact, there are more species of ants than species of birds, and more species of beetles than all species of plants combined.

Display drawer of ladybug (Coccinellidae) specimens – courtesy SFO Museum

Here’s a quick insect class, to get you ready for the exhibit:

*Insects, spiders, lobsters, and their cousins are arthropods. That means they have jointed legs and an external skeleton.

*The first insects appeared around 400 million years ago and evolved wings over 300 million years ago.

*Fossils of dragonfly ancestors, called griffinflies, had wingspans of over sixty centimeters. In contrast, the tiniest insects today have wingspans of less than one millimeter.

*But not all insects have wings. Some species, like silverfish, never evolved wings, while others, like camel crickets, lost them millions of years ago.

*Insects play integral roles in ecosystems. They pollinate the flowers of many fruits and vegetables, produce wax and honey and keep pest plants and insects at bay. Insects also recycle nutrients through decomposition, and are important food sources for other species.

Class over, for now.

Display drawer of scarab beetle (Scarabaeidae) specimens- Courtesy SFO Museum

The SFO Museum’s exhibition, The Intriguing World of Insects, comes to San Fransicsco International Airport from the Essig Museum of Entomology which is has a collection of more then 5 million arthropods stored at the University of California, Berkeley.

Look for the exhibit pre-security in SFO’s International Terminal, on the Depatures Level through August 18, 2019.

Display drawer of blue and green butterflies (Rhopalocera) and colorful beetles (Coleoptera) – courtesy SFO Museum
Wasp (Vespula vulgaris) sculpture –
by Gar Waterman  courtesy SFO


Lost airport amenity: Lindbergh’s monocoupe leaving St. Louis airport

Aviation history, Exhibits, History, , ,

For years, the 1934 Model D-127 Monocoupe once owned by aviator Charles Lindbergh has been on display at St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL), over the Concourse C security checkpoint in Terminal 1.

But the airplane, which has been on loan to the airport from the Missouri Historical Society since 1979, is coming down for good on Tuesday June 12 and put away for what is described as a “much neeed rest.”

“The 1934 Lindbergh Monocoupe is an exceedingly rare aircraft in that it still retains its original fabric covering,” said Katherine Van Allen, managing director of museum services for the Missouri Historical Society, in a statement, “In order to ensure that this unique piece of history is preserved for future generations, the Missouri Historical Society is removing the plane to a humidity and climate-controlled storage facility in accordance with present-day best practices in collections care.”

 

According to the Missouri History Museum, which received the plane in 1940, Lindbergh flew this airplane regularly, but didn’t really love it.

And even though he’d had it personalized extensively, he wrote that “It is one of the most difficult planes to handle I have ever flown. The take-off is slow…and the landing tricky…[it] is almost everything an airplane ought not to be.”

Still, it is an aviation treasure. And one that could have been lost to history back in April 2011 when a tornado hit the airport, doing millions of dollars of damage. By luck, Lindergh’s monocoupe had been moved to a storage facility just a few weeks before, in preparation for scheduled terminal renovations.

Here’s a video of the plane being rehung in the airport in 2013:

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https://vimeo.com/77450464

 

When you visit STL,  you’ll still see an airplane suspended from the ceiling over a Terminal 2 checkpoint. That plane is also owned by the Missouri Historical Society, but it’s a 1933 Red Monocoupe 110 Special with no link to Lindbergh.

 

Cool, coin-op machines on view at San Francisco Int’l Airport

Exhibits, Museums, , ,

“Futura” -1950s; Gypsy Fortune Teller – 1932. Courtesy SFO Museum

The newest exhibition offered by the SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport is about coin-operated machines, which smartly combine mechanical novelty and automated convenience. 

Lukat “The Lucky Cat” (1952) dispensed gum and a prize ticket.

“At the drop of a coin, they vended goods, provided entertainment, and offered potential jackpot payouts and free merchandise,” the exhibit notes tell us, while incorporating “decorative graphics and innovative mechanisms that captured the attention of people worldwide.”

‘Whiffs of Fragrance” 1916- dispenses a bit of perfume. Courtesy SFO Museum

Take a look as some of the cool coin-operated machines from the Joe Welch American Antique Museum in San Bruno, California on view for free (no coins necessary) in the pre-security International Terminal Main Hall Departures Lobby at San Francisco International Airport.

“The Automatic Age: Coin Operated Machines is on view from December 16, 2017 through August 5, 2018. 

SFO Museum explores history of United Airlines

Airlines, Aviation history, Exhibits, History, , ,

On July 1, San Francisco International Airport will Kick off an exhibition exploring the history of United Airlines through over 300 artifacts and images.

The items date from the 1920s to the present and include model aircraft, cabin and cockpit equipment, meal service wares, promotional items and more, so here’s hoping you have a long layover at SFO.

Here are some pics from the exhibition. All images courtesy SFO Museum.

Mechanic roll-up tool set late 1920s. Courtesy SFO Museum

Ford Tri-motor passenger seat c. 1928. Courtesy SFO Museum

DC-3 Douglas Sleeper Transport sleeper service late 1930s

Flight dispatch clock. C. 1940

Flying the Main Line: A History of United Airlines is located post-security, in the Terminal 3 Boarding Area F Upper Level at San Francisco International Airport from July 1, 2017 to March 4, 2018.

New aviation history gallery at Jacksonville Int’l Airport

Aviation history, Exhibits,

In Florida, Jacksonville International Airport has a new exhibit featuring the area’s aviation milestones and memorabilia from an era when Florida was sparsely populated.

The exhibit starts its story with January 28, 1878, when a hot air balloon containing one man was sighted floating a “mile high” over the city at 5:00 p.m. and ends on the eve of World War II, when the military created bases bigger than most Florida cities.

 

In addition to a wall mural noting historical highlights and photos of significant events in Jacksonville’s aviation history, seven cases display a variety of aviation artifacts. There are also interactive monitors with additional  information about the area’s  aviation history.

“Jacksonville Takes Flight: North Florida aviation history from 1878 to 1941” is located next to the center courtyard food court, where there’s also a great window for viewing modern day airfield activity.

 

Airport officials say this is just Phase 1 of the gallery exhibit. Phase II will begin its story at the end of World War II and conclude with aviation milestones leading up to the present day. Look for that to be completed in 2018, when JAX celebrates its 50th anniversary.