Within the first couple of weeks there were half a dozen marriage proposals. Guys dropping to their knees in the Sunken Lounge and on the cantilevered catwalk — popping the question on the Solari split-flap departure board or in “Connie,” the 1958 TWA Lockheed Constellation Starliner parked outside on the roof of a new underground conference center, the plane’s fuselage converted into a 60’s-era cocktail lounge.

The TWA Hotel now occupies Eero Saarinen’s stupendously restored 1962 TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport, midcentury modernism’s great tribute to sex, adventure and the golden age of air travel. It is attracting the predictable mix of nostalgic baby boomers, design-conscious hipsters and stylish Europeans.

[This story is part of our package about Queens, New York City’s most diverse borough. It also includes 36 Hours in Rockaway Beach, and a whirlwind tour of the Queens food scene.]

My wife and I caught the A train to Kennedy and stayed the other night, during what TWA’s owner is calling the hotel’s soft opening — his explanation for what has clearly been a rough start. Power outages, failed air-conditioning in the rooms, broken window blinds, televisions that don’t work, a food court shut down by the Health Department: the place is a work in progress.