3 N.Y. Airport Chapels to Give Way to People-Mover

Kennedy International Airport’s lineup of three modern chapels, used by millions of travelers over the last 20 years, will be razed to make way for an “automatic people-mover system,” officials said today.

The chapels are to be replaced with a single, nondenominational chapel after their destruction in 1987, but Rabbi Eugene Cohen said he will miss the old International Synagogue.

“It’s a great pity,” said Cohen, chaplain at the airport chapel since its construction in 1967. “All kinds of Jews would pray here--Orthodox, Conservative, Reform. Muslims would pray here on occasion, because we have no religious symbols. You’d come in and see them on their prayer rugs.”

The Port Authority says it needs the chapels’ site for the people-mover system, an elevated, hub-and-spoke-style railway. By 1995 the airport expects to handle 45 million passengers a year, compared to 28 million this year.

The three chapels were built side-by-side in the mid-1960s on Tri-Faith Plaza: a box (the Jewish synagogue), an A-frame (the Protestant chapel) and an oval (for the Roman Catholic church).

Because of the arrangement of the chapel buildings’ wings, “they resembled airplanes from the sky,” said Msgr. Thomas Flanagan, pastor of Our Lady of the Skies.

“Many people have called me to say this was the first place they came when they arrived in America, to offer thanks for having made it here,” Flanagan said.

And there are those with fears of flying who stop by for a shot of courage. “They feel better when they leave,” Flanagan said.