Pan Am Museum in Garden City pays homage to an icon of the skies

Linda Freire, 65, of Cold Spring Harbor, looks at home strolling through the Pan Am Museum at the Cradle of Aviation in Garden City.

In a space on the third floor, Freire shows a visitor models of planes, a mannequin in a flight attendant uniform created by Hollywood costume designer Don Loper, and a shiny propeller standing like a steel sculpture.

Farther along, a photograph depicts an airplane interior where passengers dine on meals that once included lobster and roast beef cooked to order.

Freire, who worked as a Pan Am flight attendant from 1980 to 1984 and then as a supervisor and manager until 1991, chairs the museum, conceived in 2015.

"Pan Am is indelibly interwoven into the history of this country and aviation," she says near a photograph of Pan Am’s Worldport at Kennedy Airport. "They tore down the terminal in 2013. They tore down our home. Our intent was to create a new home for Pan Am."

In 2015, Freire and fellow former Pan Am employees set out to create a new home for an airline that even after its last planes landed in 1991 still holds a place in history — and in the hearts of many.

"It was and still is a family," John Luetich, the museum’s director of curation and historian, said of a continuing connection, one that for him began with his mother, a Pan Am executive secretary from 1943 to 1980.

Luetich, 70 and a resident of Flushing, Queens, worked for Pan Am from 1975 to 1991 as a reservations sales agent and then computer programmer.

"I’ve flown almost 800,000 miles, never on business," he added. "My family’s from Dubrovnik; Pan Am allowed me to visit them often."

Many talked of Pan Am as not simply providing jobs or transportation, but creating a comfortable, welcoming world in the sky. "It was five-star all the way," Penny Warner Powell, a former Pan Am flight attendant and museum board member, said in a telephone interview. "It was glamorous."

The Pan Am story

Pan American World Airways’ first flight was Oct. 19,1927, from Key West, Florida, to Havana. The airline grew, flying to 124 countries and becoming among the world’s best-known brands before folding in 1991, as flying became cheaper, fuel costs rose and competition increased. But along the way, Pan Am repeatedly made aviation history.

"Pan Am was responsible for so many firsts," Freire says before listing some.

Pan Am was the first airline to use radio communications in 1928 and first to operate a trans-Pacific passenger flight in 1937. Pan Am in 1940 rolled out the B-307 Stratoliner with the first pressurized cabin. It operated the first trans-Atlantic passenger flight in 1939 from Port Washington to Marseille, France.

Pan Am became the first airline to carry a sitting president, transporting Franklin D. Roosevelt to meet with Winston Churchill at the Casablanca Conference in 1943. A complete list of firsts is available at the museum website, thepanammuseum.org.

"When the United States entered World War II, Pan Am’s fleet of B-314 flying boats, along with the crews and maintenance staff, were used by the Army Air Corps and the Navy," Freire explains.

Pan Am pilot Bob Ford circumnavigated the globe in a 30,000-mile trip after the Pacific Clipper flight was unable to return as planned because of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. "They took the long way home," Freire says of the world’s first around-the-world commercial flight.

A mural and text recount the flight, how the pilot camouflaged the aircraft after being notified of the Pearl Harbor attack, depicted in six videos.

Next, Freire presses a blue button to play a video of "The miracle on the Pacific," when a Pan Am pilot ditched a plane on the ocean after engine failure the way Capt. Chesley Sullenberger III landed a US Airways flight on the Hudson River in 2009.

"Pan Am did it first," Freire says before playing a video of Flight 943 on Oct. 16, 1956. "They ditched in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Everybody survived."

A museum is born

The idea for a museum started in 2015, when Andrea Sidor, a former flight attendant, was contacted by a colleague in Paris seeking a photo of a plaque celebrating the first trans-Atlantic commercial survey flight from Port Washington to Marseille in 1937. A French official wanted to duplicate the plaque and place it in Marseille.

"We asked ourselves, why isn’t there a museum dedicated to the history and legacy of Pan Am?" Freire says of former flight attendants. "And we decided to do something about it."

Freire and Sidor created the Pan Am Museum Foundation, obtaining a $5,000 loan from World Wings International, the philanthropic organization of Pan Am flight attendants founded in 1970 on Long Island. "We had to make it happen," Freire says of the former employees' efforts.

The first fundraiser, in 2016, brought in more than $350,000. The foundation then leased space at the Cradle of Aviation, which sits on the former Mitchel Field, a military airfield from 1917 to 1961. They hired Mineola-based Blumlein Associates to design such exhibits as Pan Am Pioneers, including co-founder Juan T. Trippe, the founder of the airline who died in 1981.

"We meet with the designer, give them the idea of what we want and fine-tune a design concept," Freire says of the company that has worked for the Cradle and other museums. "They put it together."

The first exhibit opened Dec. 4, 2016, with six more now in place and others being developed. Displays mix education, information and interesting facts, showing the full complement of "all the different models that Pan Am flew," Freire says, motioning to models of the 707, 747, DC-3, B-314 and more. Everyone from Amelia Earhart’s navigator, Frederick Noonan, to Charles Lindbergh worked for Pan Am.

Freire says the museum is planning a seminar on June 27 called "Civil Rights, Race, Gender Equity and Pan Am Diversity In Flight" that will look at the airline’s pioneering Black pilots, flight attendants and station personnel, who have formed an organization called Blackbirds of Pan Am.

Airline artifacts

The museum is filled with such airline artifacts as china, a blanket, a program from the 1963 opening of the Pan Am Building, a Pan Am logo seat belt and large model of a 747 jumbo jet, which first flew for Pan Am on Jan. 22, 1970.

"Most of the artifacts donated to the museum come from members of the Pan Am family, Pan Am employees and their families," Luetich said. "Pan Am people and their families are proud of their association with the airline."

Luetich’s family loaned a model of the Stratocruiser made by Boeing in 1949 that belonged to his mother. "It was in the Chrysler Building [in Manhattan] until they moved, and now it’s in the museum," Luetich said.

Other items on display include a black console from a Stratocruiser cockpit; a series of children’s books Pan Am once handed out on planes preserves a bygone era. An advertisement shows a flight attendant. "Pan Am frequently used its flight attendants in its ads," Freire adds near a life-size poster cutout of flight attendant Ilona Duncan.

Luetich said the museum hopes to add QR codes to exhibits to provide visitors with greater detail and perhaps an audio tour accessible from a smartphone.

Those who worked at Pan Am like to share their own stories about how they ended up in the sky.

"I wanted to have a career that would enable me to travel," said Powell, a museum board member. "I wanted to do the jet-set lifestyle. I discovered Pan Am, said ‘This is it,’ and I got hired."

She quickly found herself flying to Brazil, Italy, France and more. "It was a complete change in my life," she said. "I moved to New York, got the job with Pan Am. I met people from all over the world."

Powell is proud to be part of Pan Am’s history. "As an African American woman, to be a Pan Am flight attendant was a big deal in my family. I came back from Rome and my aunt wanted me to keep my uniform on," Powell added. "My mother said, ‘She wants to see you in your uniform.’ "

After Pan Am folded, many employees remained in aviation. Powell, at Pan Am from 1985 to 1991, worked for Delta Air Lines until 2005, when she became a Realtor in Florida.

After leaving Pan Am in 1991, Freire also worked for Delta as a base manager for flight attendants at Kennedy and as regional director for its member clubs until 2005. "I often said Pan Am was my magic carpet ride around the world," Freire says later. "We’re passionate about what we do for the museum. We don’t want Pan Am to become a footnote for history."

She is proud to have given Pan Am fans a place to remember the iconic airline that has spawned TV shows (2011’s "Pan Am" drama series) movies (2002’s "Catch Me If You Can" is based on the autobiography of Frank Abagnale, who at 19 impersonated a Pan Am pilot and others).

"There is an expression among Pan Amers, because of the dedication and loyalty to the airline, that we ‘bleed blue.’ Another one is ‘Gone, but not forgotten,’ " Freire says. "Both of those themes resonate within all of us.

"Pan Am is gone, but it will never be forgotten."