Negotiating Landside-Airside Space in an Early American Airport: New York La Guardia Terminal 1933-1939

Negotiating Landside-Airside Space in an Early American Airport: New York La Guardia Terminal 1933-1939 Second Year Project. R E V I S E D C O P Y January, 2008 Victor Marquez S&TS Science and Technology Studies PhD, October 2007 Cornell University 1 Introduction What is the Landside-Airside Boundary? The Collins English Dictionaryi defines it in a very succinct and uncompromising way: “Landside” (noun) is the part of an airport farthest from the aircraft, the boundary of which is the security check, customs, passport control, etc. “Airside” on the contrary is the part of an airport nearest the aircraft, the boundary of which is the security check, customs, passport control, etc. Both definitions help to show that only a very basic idea exists of what these terms mean, and that little research has been done in order to define them more accurately. In the general civil engineering and architecture lexicon, airside represents buildings and facilities on the side of the planes and landside refers to the same but on the side of passengers; a definition similar to the one mentioned above. For the more specialized jargon of airport designers, engineers and specialists airports must be divided into two control sectors: the landside, referring to all areas allowing the free flow of passengers, visitors and vehicles; and the airside, which are restricted areas only for use of authorized personnel, aircrafts and service vehicles. ii However, in terms of airport planning, security and regulatory codes, it represents the boundary between the “sterile” and the” non-sterile” zones, a through area where passengers move along “filters” in order to be “cleared” and “segregated”.iii As we may see in this first approach to a definition, even in practice, there is hardly a consensus. Throughout this paper I try to describe the landside and airside boundary based more on the evidence found in revisiting the cultural history of aviation and airports, than any of the previous definitions or the current technical conventions. In other words, I am open to finding a new meaning. I see the landside-airside as the borderline between humans and machines, a complex negotiation between the forces of “users” and “technological determinism”. Metaphorically, this boundary can speak of a truncated love story -that in essence is not different to our fascination with automobiles or trains- but finally ends up truncated, as the landside-airside history will show. My conception of landscape-airside captures, in its physical form, the romantic days when the “airminded” 2 enjoyed visiting airfields just for pleasure, but also gives a clue to understanding why they were later separated throughout the years. Sadly, in our days airport terminals are “Bentham’s Panopticons”iv where surveillance and “tension” are omnipresent, passengers are treated as potential criminals and people are not allowed to make jokes or laugh. But one century ago, airports were something radically different. What is the purpose of this study? Perhaps because it is hardly evident or even noticeable, the landside – airside boundary has been scarcely discussed in the literature of aviation and has been particularly overlooked by historians of technology. In the present day we often transit through its limits without realizing, however its psychological dimension is present in any airport. The way I intend to address this frontier is not limited to its current functionality, in terms of security, customs or regulations of any order. My research hypothesis was first based on the empirical comparison between the landside – airside boundary that we find nowadays in any airport and its strong disconnection with the early years of airport architecture. Just a glimpse of the first years of aviation will allow us to notice a radical departure from our tactile relationship to planes, toward our present physical “divorce”. Our right to enjoy the world of aircrafts has been strangely denied, but maybe under the shadows of war or terrorism this is not so unexpected. This preamble encouraged me to first establish a panoramic framework on the history of airport planning in order to raise a more specific research question. Therefore, I intended to trace the earliest configurations of this man- machine frontier and then follow up with its progressive development until it was shaped the way we know it today. As the preliminary work moved forward, the initial hypothesis evolved into a more specific question concerning the implications of this change. In the apparent “evolution” of this transformation there was a clear breakthrough, almost dividing history in two opposite halves. Spanning from the pioneering days of airfields, only after the Second World War, were airports laid out the way they are now. Curiously between1937 and 1944 a small number of projects seemed to redefine our historical relationship to planes and the fascinating world of aviation. But among these examples, one predominated: the 1939 New York Municipal Airport, also called North Beach and later LaGuardia Airport. It 3 distinguished itself from the rest perhaps because it was the first of its kind and literally the first modern airport in America. Unanimously, its contemporaries considered it an exemplary technical innovation in airport planning, although its architecture was strongly criticized. As I suggest in this essay, some specific features of its layout captured for the first time, the growing conflict between humans and machines; in other words the irrevocable breaking-off of spectators from airplanes that became a silent witness until the terminals were finally demolished in 1960v. So, how can we trace its history? In this regard much of the research relies upon visual materials and original documentation from the time period. Among the researched archives, the LaGuardia and Wagner at the LaGuardia Community College CUNY in Long Island, the Manuscripts and Archives at the Yale University Library, the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library Archives at Columbia University and the Harmer E. Davis Library at the Institute of Transportation Studies, Berkeley University were especially important for collecting some of the primary sources for this project. Several libraries were consulted in and around New York City, including the New York Public Library –especially helpful with visual materials; the Cornell University library system; lastly consultation on a number of doctoral theses in the Van Pelt Library in the University of Pennsylvania and in the Princeton University Library, were also necessary. The secondary sources for this study are relatively limited due to the sparse specialized literature. 4 Pilots are gods descending from heaven... Public perception of aviation during the first four decades of the last century was diametrically opposed to the present days. In the earliest days, flying man-machines became an instant technological sensation. In this vein Marcel Proust wrote in his “In Search of Lost Time”: “I was as moved as a Greek would be who saw for the first time a demi-god… The aviator seemed to hesitate in choosing his way; I felt there lay open before him- before me, if habit had not held me prisoner- all the routes of space, of space, of life; he flew away, glided for a few instants above the sea, then brusquely making his decision, seeming to surrender to an attraction the opposite of that of gravity, as if returning to his homeland, with a light movement of his golden wings, he ascended straight up toward the sky”vi. Proust’s awe for the supra human character of the pilot, poetically transforms into clairvoyance and reverence. The unparalleled idea of navigating across the skies gave these men a mythical and almost ethereal proportion -; the high risk involved before aviation became a stable system, made them seen as the most brave. The chronicles of war combats, acrobats and unimaginable explorations gave them the status of heroes. The myth of the winged men forged a culture of reverence and unlimited veneration that even reached a metaphysical level. The machine was a means of reaching those “higher and deeper goals” that Nietzsche had placed above the Darwinian struggle for existence as a motive for human life and effortvii. Yet the dialogue between spectators and airplanes represents only the temporary celebration of the sublime. “The technological sublime does not endorse human limitations; rather it manifests a split between those who understand and control machines and those who do not. In Kant’s theory of the natural sublime every human being’s imagination falters before the immensity of the absolutely great. In contrast, a sublime based on mechanical improvements is made possible by the superior imagination of an engineer or a technician who creates an object that overwhelms the imagination of the ordinary men.” 5 Controlling aircrafts was not an easy task. The flying machines were always accompanied by the bravery of piloting, and therefore strongly related to the implicit dangers of injury or death. In most cases fame was inversely proportional to the masculinity of the accomplishment. In fact most expeditions and trips were encouraged by public challenges and financed with juicy rewards offered only to the most intrepid. This became a common way to advertise companies or even restaurants, as in the case of the transatlantic crossing challenge. During the first decades of the century, airplanes meant something for people. The flying machines exalted our imagination and awoke higher ideals for a better world. In this regard, beyond being considered only as equipment, they represented a binomial relationship between men and machinesviii. The plane and the pilot were inseparable parts of an equation; they signified the bridging into a new era of unlimited progress. Spectators idolized the object, using their five senses to appropriate some of its essence.ix It became common to see people staring at the sky in search of an aircraft or desperately trying to touch airplanes when they had landed or were parked at the airfield.

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