An Art Deco museum masquerading as an airport
After 90 years of municipal squabbles and natural disasters, the Lakefront Airport sits as a wonderfully preserved exhibition of the Art Deco age. In 1929, Abraham Shushan, a politician, businessman, and a bit of a shyster, teamed up with then governor Huey Long to push through their vision for a modern airport. The two spent $3 million to pump out 6 million cubic yards of water to build the airport on a newly formed jetty where a portion of Lake Pontchartrain had been. The land formerly underwater was in the public domain, which meant that anti-Long political factions had no say or control.
Christened the Shushan Airport when it opened in 1934, it was the first combined land and seaplane air terminal in the world. The grand Atrium has a terrazzo floor and is lined with aviation-themed murals by Spanish-American artist Xavier Gonzalez. There are ornamental touches everywhere you turn, from the neon arrow pointing to the Walnut Room to a retro bank of phone booths.
Info
Address 6001 Stars & Stripes Boulevard, New Orleans, LA 70126, +1 504.243.4010, www.lakefrontairport.com | Tip You can dine at Messina’s Runway Cafe in the airport lobby. They are open from 8am to 3pm, serving local dishes such as eggs hussard, shrimp and grits, po’boys, and signature homemade sweet-potato biscuits.
A controversial sculpture/fountain by Enrique Alférez sits out front and depicts the four seasons as three women and a man, all nude. In 1936 it was deemed indecent and city officials demanded the endowed male statue have his genitalia chiseled off. Alférez refused and stood guard every night with a rifle to ward off vandals. Eleanor Roosevelt finally stepped in and demanded the sculpture remain as it was created.
More controversy followed in 1939 when Shusan was indicted and convicted on various charges of theft and fraud. In response, the board changed the name to Lakefront Airport. However, they had a much harder time removing Abe’s name from all the surfaces of the terminal. In a Donald Trump-like way, he had crazily etched his name in the lavatories, on the doors, in the wall tiles, and even on the pavement outside. One board member admitted defeat: “We haven’t got the kind of money it would take to get Abe off everything.”
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