Home needed for Pan Am Museum

The Pan Am Historical Foundation in Bethpage, NY is looking for a home for a Pan Am Airline Museum in Miami. Seeing how the company established the first US international aviation route, with its Key West to Havana service. out of Dinner Key in the 1930's, that is the location the group would love to see as a museum site.

You may recognize City Hall in the photo above, since Miami City Hall is the old Pan Am Terminal. Many locals would love to see City Hall move to downtown Miami and have the building reverted to a museum and restaurant. But that doesn't seem to be on the horizon any time soon.

In a letter to Mayor Tomás Regalado, the Foundation says: "The two hangars just north of your offices on Pan American Way would make a unique Museum. We have in mind an informal exhibit structure similar to that used in the successful Museum of Flight in Seattle, with an emphasis on its educational appeal for children as well as aviation buffs. The close proximity to Dinner Key of the University of Miami's Richter Library, the custodian of Pan Am's archives, would facilitate the display of historical documents and photographs."

An independent research firm confirms that the museum would generate a large increase in tourism to the area and of course in turn, be a great economic generator.

The group is now prepared to meet with the Mayor along with Charlie Trippe, the son of Pan Am's founder and Jeff Kriendler, a founding board member of the Pan Am Historical Foundation.

More on Pan Am here.

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons