I’ve been hanging around this Art Deco, WPA-era building for nearly 60 years and would recognize it with my eyes closed. The same smell permeates the place as it did the first day I walked in—an industrial strength disinfectant, which I think emanates from the bathrooms. In the “ladies,” there used to be one of those World War II-era memes of a little guy with a big nose peering over a wall with the inscription, “Kilroy was Here.”
After I learned to fly and put in a stint with TWA as a hostess, in 1963, I met, fell in love with, and went to work for Ebby Lunken in multiple roles for his new Midwest Airways. Our office and counter were in this building, right where the old American Airlines counters had been from the 1930s until 1946. The Sky Galley Restaurant opened when the terminal was built in 1937, as American Airlines’ first Sky Chef. I always felt a real sense of history standing behind that counter but, despite our work and hopes and dreams, Ebby (a wonderful pilot) wasn’t a businessman and eventually the little airline failed.
