wigstheone
Sep 2, 01, 11:46 am
SUMMER ended for Stephen Reil shortly after 7:30 Thursday evening. That's when he and his family arrived at Newark Airport from their vacation in Disney World. His time in the Magic Kingdom had expired and he was back at Airport Adventure, a theme park of construction cranes, detours and confusion.
Searching the choking traffic for his hired driver, Mr. Reil suddenly felt like the harried three-time-a-week business traveler he is in real life. "It sort of hits you like a wet blanket that you're back to reality," he said.
If summer is life as we wish it were, Newark Airport is life as it really is, a work in perpetual progress.
The airport's $3.8 billion renovation is inching toward completion with new parking garages, roadways, terminal space and more. The logo for the project is "Your Airport. Reimagined." That sounds like plastic surgery, but it sometimes feels like a shattered jaw.
It has become like Boston's Big Dig, a huge public works project that dares you to venture close. Parking is limited, roads are congested, the terminal-to-parking monorail is working, but only sometimes. And, by the way, it is the region's busiest airport.
Susan M. Baer, the airport's confusingly upbeat general manager, said one of her employees pointed out "there are 34 million people coming to the airport every year and each of them has their own agenda." (But luggage that looks like everyone else's.)
That is what makes Newark Airport such a perfect destination for people returning from a bit of summer fantasy.
Fly to Florida if you want airports with swaying palms, or Dallas-Fort Worth if you're eager to be greeted with 10-gallon hats and cowboy boots. At Newark you get hard hats and steel toes, fitting gear for the New York region. Airport officials, sensing public frustration, have plastered the place with attitude-control slogans reminiscent of 1970's self-help books. One says: "Yesterday is but a dream. Tomorrow is but a vision. Today is just a temporary annoyance." Another rewrites Shakespeare: "All is well that ends well. In the meantime we appreciate your patience." Isn't that a quotation from "Love's Luggage Lost"?
FLYING has become routine; airports are the real adventure. Every plane is equipped with oxygen masks in case the cabin loses pressure. But who's going to rescue you if you accidentally roll backward over those frightful teeth at the entrance to the Alamo lot and puncture the tires on your rental car?
The Newark reconstruction has been particularly entertaining.
"I like coming here to see how it changes," said Donald Campbell, arriving from vacation in Australia. But he is a geologist who by trade is fascinated by slow alterations of the earth's landscape.
Not everyone is enchanted. Ms. Baer has has tried easing things with an army of customer service aides, including `mobility assistance representatives" to help the disabled and assurances that order will emerge from chaos. There's only so much she can do. "This is the metropolitan region," she said, "There's too much of everything." She compares the project to "renovating your home while living in it and inviting a few of your friends and relatives to live with you." From her office overlooking the runways, Ms. Baer declared the project "within budget and on time."
But that's the way airports are. How come flights are always on time, but passengers are always delayed?
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/nyregion/02TOWN.html
Searching the choking traffic for his hired driver, Mr. Reil suddenly felt like the harried three-time-a-week business traveler he is in real life. "It sort of hits you like a wet blanket that you're back to reality," he said.
If summer is life as we wish it were, Newark Airport is life as it really is, a work in perpetual progress.
The airport's $3.8 billion renovation is inching toward completion with new parking garages, roadways, terminal space and more. The logo for the project is "Your Airport. Reimagined." That sounds like plastic surgery, but it sometimes feels like a shattered jaw.
It has become like Boston's Big Dig, a huge public works project that dares you to venture close. Parking is limited, roads are congested, the terminal-to-parking monorail is working, but only sometimes. And, by the way, it is the region's busiest airport.
Susan M. Baer, the airport's confusingly upbeat general manager, said one of her employees pointed out "there are 34 million people coming to the airport every year and each of them has their own agenda." (But luggage that looks like everyone else's.)
That is what makes Newark Airport such a perfect destination for people returning from a bit of summer fantasy.
Fly to Florida if you want airports with swaying palms, or Dallas-Fort Worth if you're eager to be greeted with 10-gallon hats and cowboy boots. At Newark you get hard hats and steel toes, fitting gear for the New York region. Airport officials, sensing public frustration, have plastered the place with attitude-control slogans reminiscent of 1970's self-help books. One says: "Yesterday is but a dream. Tomorrow is but a vision. Today is just a temporary annoyance." Another rewrites Shakespeare: "All is well that ends well. In the meantime we appreciate your patience." Isn't that a quotation from "Love's Luggage Lost"?
FLYING has become routine; airports are the real adventure. Every plane is equipped with oxygen masks in case the cabin loses pressure. But who's going to rescue you if you accidentally roll backward over those frightful teeth at the entrance to the Alamo lot and puncture the tires on your rental car?
The Newark reconstruction has been particularly entertaining.
"I like coming here to see how it changes," said Donald Campbell, arriving from vacation in Australia. But he is a geologist who by trade is fascinated by slow alterations of the earth's landscape.
Not everyone is enchanted. Ms. Baer has has tried easing things with an army of customer service aides, including `mobility assistance representatives" to help the disabled and assurances that order will emerge from chaos. There's only so much she can do. "This is the metropolitan region," she said, "There's too much of everything." She compares the project to "renovating your home while living in it and inviting a few of your friends and relatives to live with you." From her office overlooking the runways, Ms. Baer declared the project "within budget and on time."
But that's the way airports are. How come flights are always on time, but passengers are always delayed?
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/nyregion/02TOWN.html