A police escort helped a high flyer from Queens with a somewhat disreputable past breeze through traffic early Saturday in Manhattan.
The fuselage of the now-defunct, Trans World Airlines 1958 “Connie” plane — once used to drop marijuana by a South American drug trafficker — travelled in style from the new TWA Hotel at John F. Kennedy Airport to Broadway and West 46th Street in Times Square, where it will be parked until Sunday.
After that, the Howard Hughes-designed, fully restored 1958 Lockheed Constellation L-1649A airplane will return as the centerpiece of the hotel, where it will get its wings back.
“It’s going to look just like it did in 1958,” said Tyler Morse, MCR Development, which is developing the hotel, which opens May 15. “We had 75 NYPD officers escorting us….People were blown away.”
The plane, which is 125 feet long and will eventually have a wingspan of 150 feet, was restored in Maine and returned to the Big Apple in November.
Like many New Yorkers, the old bird has a past.
The Connie flew for TWA for three years, until it was forced into an early retirement by the Boeing 707. Later, it was an Alaskan bush plane, and after that, the drug drops.
It took in a few high profile visitors on Saturday, including Mayor de Blasio, who said the new terminal is “going to be a vibrant hotel and conference space, and part of our city again.”
And its temporary parking spot is significant — it’s close to the spot where an eight-story billboard depicting the TWA craft hung from 1955 to 1960.
New Yorkers were stunned by the ‘sight’ of fancy.
“My cab was stopped on 14th and 6th… for a massive TWA plane to be dragged uptown?” Dana Monocky tweeted.
“Helicopters, tons of police. What was that??”
“We saw it too going up 6th Ave and Waverly with a “Queens or bust” sign,” Sunshine Helmer replied. “Guessing it’s for the new JFK TWA hotel.”
Joe Stevens, 45, of Manhattan, stopped to look at the plane for a moment Saturday afternoon.
“This is so cool,” he said, adding that he’s been to the old TWA Terminal. “It takes me back to when I was a little kid. It’s about time they did something like this—it’s a beautiful terminal.”
The the Sixth Avenue leg of the plane’s journey was filmed for the documentary “The Rebirth of the TWA Flight Center,” which traces the transformation of the terminal, designed by Eero Saarinen in 1962, into the hotel.
With Post Wire Services