Is This the Next Iconic Piece of Airport Art?
A massive new split flap board bound for New York's JFK Airport is coming together in Philadelphia.
I am attending Passenger Terminal Expo (PTE) World in London from March 17-19, 2026. Say hi if you see me or reach out if you want to meet!
Clickety-clickety-clickety.
That sound, so familiar to travelers of a certain age, was once standard for IN TRANSIT
Split-flap boards, many originally made by the legendary Italian industrial designer Solari di Udine, making their distinctive clickety-clickety, graced the halls for airports and train stations around the world for decades. The Frankfurt Airport, former Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong, 30th Street Station in Philadelphia and the TWA Flight Center at New York’s JFK airport are just a few that had (or have) them.
“The mechanical board is the physical manifestation of motion. You are traveling even before you’ve left the station,” Inga Saffron, the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic at The Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote in defense of the 30th Street board in 2018 (it was replaced a year later).
Now, there’s a new board in town.
In the Gensler-designed new Terminal 1 at JFK, on the walls above the entrance to security at the back of the cavernous ticketing lobby, is the future home of New York’s latest split flap board. Designed by Pentagram in collaboration with Arup, the board’s size is befitting its location: at 53 feet 9.5 inches long and up to 22 feet 1.625 inches tall, with 6,437 active modules and weighing 19,260lbs, it will be the largest such display in the world.1
That’s a lot of clickety-clickety.
But this split-flap board will not remind travelers of how late they are. Rather, it is part of what the New Terminal One’s “Leaving New York” experience. Ninety different New York scenes, from Manhattan to Niagara Falls, synced to the time of day will captivate travelers roughly every 90 seconds2 as they wait. The time will be shown on the hour.
“It’s the tour de force of the entire program,” Gideon D’Arcangelo, the experience design lead at Arup working on Terminal 1, said of the multi-million dollar arts program for the new terminal.
This is a story best heard.
