East Side Airlines Terminal

You are standing near the site of the former East Side Airlines Terminal, which once functioned as a bustling transportation hub for travelers heading to the citys airports. When it opened in 1953, it occupied the entire block between Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth Streets, serving as a centralized place where passengers could buy tickets, check their luggage, and board buses that took them directly to LaGuardia, Idlewild, or Newark airports. Its location next to the entrance of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel allowed buses to bypass local street traffic, a clever bit of urban planning meant to ease the congestion of mid-century Manhattan.