The Fairs’ World

By Tamara Hartman

The almost-thirty set of "old timers" – that is, those who have always lived in Queens – grew up with the precious red record. We played it on our record players, listened to the booming voice, and one even reports thinking that its story about the beginnings of mankind was a spin off of Planet of the Apes.

The reflection of the Unisphere can be seen in the window of the Queens Museum of Art — the same building that served as the 1939 World’s Fair.

That was the generation born in the 1970 . . . we knew Flushing Meadows was a big park, we saw the elevators stuck on the round building (New York City Pavilion) and wondered where they went, and we played with the red record.

And when Pop passed down his Heinz pickle pin as if it were made of gold, we really didn’t get it.

But these are the remembrances that the Worlds Fairs left in the minds of a generation, and in the generation to come. It spoke to the accomplishments that mankind had made, the inventions that would shape the future, and pondered just how far human beings could reach into the sky.

The Parachute Jump at the 1939 Fair.

The first network television broadcast reached out to the stars from the 1939 Worlds Fair and first generation American Polish and Lithuanian young women from Maspeth put on their most stylish dresses to visit the Polish Pavilion.

In 1964, the world was remade and America’s corporations joined in to offer their vision of the world and its future. And if you went into the Traveller’s Insurance red-domed building, your signed your name to the register and the red record came to your home . . . or even five copies came to your home if you went back enough times. Then one day, when you were grown up (if that ever happened), you could pass one on to your daughter.

But more than shaping the memories of childhood for Queens children who went to the fairs and those who came after them, the two World’s Fairs shaped the face of the borough and the way we travel around it.

When Robert Moses trudged through the former Corona Ash Heap, he didn’t see a wide expanse of grey debris but rather the possibility for acres of green park land. Instead of the workmen unloading a constant flow of garbage, Moses saw a chance to create a place where families could come and enjoy a lazy Sunday afternoon.

However, the idea for Flushing Meadows Park did not end there. He realized that Flushing Meadows could be the centerpiece for a series of parks connecting across the borough – all he needed was the chance to prove his idea could work. That chance arrived in the form of the 1939-40 World’s Fair.

A series of long-term construction projects related to the fair ended up helping the flow of traffic in New York.

Maspeth residents pose for a photo in front of the "City of Light" at the 1939 Fair.

Other projects undertaken in connection with the 1939-40 fair included the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, the Whitestone Expressway, the Grand Central and Cross Island parkways, the Queens Boulevard line of the Independent subway (extended to Kew Gardens in 1936), a station of the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) at Willets Point Boulevard, a station of the Long Island Railroad, a sewage treatment plant in Bowery Bay and LaGuardia Airport.

Visitors stroll around the pond that surrounded the Perisphere and Trylon at the 1939 Fair.

The next World’s Fair was held in 1964-65. Moses, who was president of the World’s Fair Corporation at the time, saw to it that more construction projects benefitting Queens were incorporated into plans for the fair.

If you signed the register at the Traveller’s Insurance building at the 1939 Fair, then the "red record" titled "The Triumph of Man" came to your home.

Major construction projects connected with the fair included widening the Grand Central Parkway and the Whitestone Expressway, extending the Van Wyck Expressway, and building Shea Stadium.

The symbol of the fair was the Unisphere, erected by U.S. Steel, which has since become one of the most defining images representing the borough of Queens.

After the fair closed, the city rededicated Flushing Meadows-Corona Park on June 3, 1967. Among the various structures left standing were the Singer Bowl (later Louis Armstrong Stadium, now the U.S. Tennis Center), the Port Authority Heliport (now Terrace on the Park), the New York Hall of Science, and the New York State Pavilion, as well as various statuary and a time capsule.

The New York City Pavilion has since been transformed into the Queens Museum of Art.

— Richard Fasanella contributed to this story