I will freely admit that 20 years have passed since I was based at JFK flying DC-10s.
One crystal-clear winter's night we were approaching JFK from the south. I used to put the No.3 VHF on to the Kennedy Tower frequency and give it to the F/E to listen to as to whether aircraft were ACTUALLY landing or not (this could be a big help whilst going round the Mickey hold for ever and an end).
The ATIS was giving CAVU conditions with no problems but my F/E reported that every second aircraft seemed to be making a go-around.
We were eventually vectored to finals on 31R behind a DC-8. Sure enough, he went around much to our amazement.
My F/O landed the aircraft very nicely and applied reverse thrust and the brakes but nothing much happened. He had full brakes on and kept them on. Normally we would have come out of reverse at 60 knots (for FOD avoidance) but we still had full reverse applied when we came to a halt with the flight deck over the grass at the end of 31R. Luckily the nosewheel was still on the tarmac.
We were then cleared to make a left on the outer but we slid past that, once again with full brakes and full reverse and just made it on to the inner.
We were then told by Ground that we were the 5th aircraft to make this "mistake". My suggestion that they get out there bloody quickly with some grit was treated with a stoney silence.
There was no mention of lack of braking action on the ATIS nor was it mentioned by anyone else. (Such was the case when a friend of mine went off the end at Logan in N113WA).
What am I trying to say? Probably that the NY Air Trafficers are brilliant at getting you in and out of JFK but once you are on the ground, you have possibly just entered the biggest zoological garden in the world! There is a huge difference between the FAA and the New York Port Authority.
For those of you who have yet to figure out why every second aeroplane was making a go-around it was simply that the previous aircraft was unable to get off the runway in the usual expeditious fashion.