Groovy baby: This week, Tyler Morse, CEO of MCR and Morse Development, officially revealed the model guest room for the TWA Hotel at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Set in two low-rise buildings, the hotel’s 512 ultra-quiet, 1960s-inspired guest rooms feature authentic Eero Saarinen-designed midcentury modern Knoll furnishings, martini bars, vintage rotary phones and terrazzo-tiled bathrooms with Hollywood-style vanities. Accessible through Saarinen’s iconic arrival tubes made famous by the 2002 film “Catch Me If You Can,” the rooms designed by New York City firm Stonehill Taylor are accented with warm wood elements and brushed brass. The TWA Hotel, opening in spring 2019, will restore Saarinen’s 1962 TWA Flight Center to its Jet Age glory. Read the story from Architectural Digest. —Jeff Weinstein
Cuba yes, Cuba no: This op-ed from a professor of government at the American University School of Public Affairs duly notes that U.S. President Donald Trump didn’t always feel the way he does about Cuba, especially in the olden days when he was real-estate mogul Donald Trump. In this piece for The Conversation, William M. LeoGrande writes that relations between the United States and Cuba have grown tense under the Trump administration, which tightened economic sanctions against the Communist Caribbean island in 2017. But things weren’t always so antagonistic. Back when he was solely in real estate, Trump was happy to overlook the embargo – twice, in fact – for a chance to open a Trump-branded hotel or golf resort in Cuba. —Barbara Bohn
Let’s do the time warp again: There’s just something inescapably romantic about historic U.S. hotels. A 1920s guest holed up with an illegal brandy in the lounge; a hotel that might once have housed Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War – this is the kind of lore hotel legends get built around and this Reader’s Digest roundup has compiled, by state, the oldest and most historic of the bunch. Enjoy a little Friday history lesson. —Chloe Riley