The World’s Fair brought the masses to Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
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Millions Come To See What We’ve Got
By ELLEN THOMPSON
With two airports situated right here in Queens and trains running routes throughout the borough, it’s no surprise that millions of visitors arrive in Queens each year. But throughout history there have been times when visitors simply didn’t pass through the borough – instead, they joined the masses of Queensites ready to take on the next big event.
1939 World’s Fair
Warm spring breezes were wrapping around Flushing Meadows Corona Park on April 30, 1939 when 200,000 people embarked on “The World Of Tomorrow.” Through a roaring crowd bits and pieces of French, Italian, Chinese and languages from around the world could be deciphered as visitors caught a glimpse of the first televisions and a keyboard-operated speech synthesizer.
The fair, which was the brainchild of a group of New York City businessmen at the height of the Great Depression, brought more than 45 million visitors into Queens during its two-season run. Generating roughly $48 million in revenue, the fair was, in fact, an economic failure and dissapointment to the buisnessmen who invested $67 million and an additional resources into the festivities.
As the fair’s gates closed on Oct. 27, 1940 and millions of visitors left the borough, visions of tomorrow were still alive and running. Kids from across the country were marveling over their first roller coaster ride and parachute jump, while parents wondered what exactly the people of 6939 would think when they dig up the time capsule to read Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann’s writings.
Mets Opening Day 1964
William A. Shea, a popular attorney who spearheaded the drive to bring National League baseball back to New York after the Dodgers and Giants headed west in 1957, christened the Mets’ new home, Shea Stadium, with two symbolic bottles of water on April 17, 1964.
Thousands of Mets fans flock to Shea Stadium on a daily basis in the sumertime. Tribune photo by Ira Cohen |
As 48,736 fans sat eagerly awaiting the first pitch, Shea opened one bottle from the Gowanus Canal near Ebbets Field, former home of the Brooklyn Dodgers and one from the Harlem River near the Polo Grounds, where the New York Giants had played (and later the Mets during the 1962 and 1963 seasons) and poured them onto the field.
The spring afternoon was a new beginning – the young club was ready to take on the Pittsburgh Pirates in their new $25.5 million home. Since the stadium’s opening it has drawn more than 73 million fans into the borough.
1964 World’s Fair
More than 51 million people stood in awe, staring at the shining 12-story high stainless steel model of the earth, the Unisphere, which sat at the center of the 1964 World’s Fair during the fair’s two six-month season runs.
Thoughts of an economic boom to a borough that was growing more diverse day by day brought the “Peace Through Understanding” themed fair dedicated to “Man’s Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe” to Queens.
Visitors got a taste of growing corporate America as they glided past what life might be like in the near future while sitting in General Motors’ three-abreast moving armchairs, not to mention a site of the wondrous new contraption – the computer. The fair closed on Oct. 17, 1965.
Beatles Invade Queens
John, Paul, George and Ringo emerged from a tunnel and onto the stage positioned at second base as 55,600 fans screaming fans helped make rock and roll history, shelling out $304,000 in ticket sales for the Aug. 15, 1965 concert – at the time the biggest gate sale ever.
The U.S. Open. Tribune photo by Brian M. Rafferty |
The Beatles had landed two days earlier at JFK ready to perform the first stadium concert in music history on their third U.S. tour. Fans sat through the King Curtis Band, Cannibal and the Headhunters, Brenda Holloway, The Young Rascals and Sounds Incorporated. When the Beatles began their 30-minute set, not even the newly installed huge 100-watt amplifiers could compete with the screaming crowd.
For the thousands of other fans in Queens who missed the sold out concert, they got the chance to view the hysteria March 1, 1966 when it aired on television with the help of Ed Sullivan Productions.
U.S. Open
Each summer for two weeks, 650,000 tennis fans put on their visors and flood into the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Corona Park for the annual U.S. Tennis Open.
The tournament, which the United States Tennis Association premiered in 1881 at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, has transformed into a worldwide sporting event. In 1968 the men’s and women’s tennis tournaments were combined, opened to professionals, and renamed the U.S. Open.
Rivaled only by Wimbledon, players compete in Men’s Singles, Men’s Doubles, Women’s Singles, Women’s Doubles, and Mixed Doubles. Played on hard courts, the U.S. Open energetic competition brings fast paced fans to Queens.
Queens Festival
More than 1.5 million people made their way to Flushing Meadows Corona Park in 1987 for the Annual Queens Festival, which offered over more than 300 exhibits.
Thanks to a group of business leaders, politicians and other Queens bigwigs who created the first Queens Festival, visitors from across the country took in a weekend of fun, games, entertainment, good food and a carnival-like atmosphere.
Performances by the Wailers, the Ramones, Lou Christie, and the Queens Symphony Orchestra filled the 1987 festival. By the early 1990s the festival was drawing nearly 3 million residents, but it wouldn’t last forever as infighting, politics and other influences brought the annual party to an end.
Billy Graham 2005
Last June, Queens saw one of the biggest faith revivals in history as the borough’s churches prepared for the 230,000 visitors who flooded into Flushing Meadows Corona Park to hear the spoken words of evangelist Billy Graham.
Graham’s Greater New York Crusade brought the music of Salvador, Steven Curtis Chapman, and the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir to followers’ ears, while former President Bill Clinton attended.
Burdened with multiple illnesses, the 86-year-old evangelist gathered the strength to bring Queens believers together for three days, marking his final crusade.
