World’s Fairgrounds
The docent leading the walking tour of the 1964-65 New York World's Fair site at Flushing Meadows Corona Park greets our group beneath the massive Unisphere at the epicenter of the historic fairgrounds. A lifelong Queens resident and retired school librarian, she is fully loaded with binders, books, brochures and laminated pages displaying sites no longer extant on the grounds at which we gather. She endeavors to fill the gap by showing photos and illustrations supplemented with occasional doses of her own nostalgic commentary.
She recalls the Secretary-General of the United Nations moving into her neighborhood when the international organization was first formed and temporarily quartered here. From 1946-1950, the General Assembly inhabited the building that was formerly the official pavilion of the host city during the 1939-40 exposition. Delegations from the original participating nations settled in what came to be known as “The World’s Borough” where current residents are said to represent over 120 countries and speak 130 languages.
The septuagenarian native also shares the personal memory of her cousin throwing a Spalding ball over the monumental steel structure as we gaze at the 140 foot steel globe atop its 20 foot high base before commencing our walkabout. “He was from the Bronx,” she adds by way of explanation, as if proximity to Yankee Stadium might suggest such prowess. When asked how many times he had to hurl the rubber sphere to achieve such a distinction, the guide remarks that he lived in a five story building and was always throwing balls up on the roof. As we circumnavigate the iconic 700,000 pound colossus, she also points out a hawk’s nest near Africa and the fact that Sri Lanka fell off in 1970.
At the outset of the tour, participants are invited to share memories of childhood experiences at the Fair half a century ago. “There’s usually someone in the crowd who was actually here all those years back,” points out our guide. “We’re not all dead yet.” I was only 4-5 during April-October of ‘64-65 when the expo was underway, but I distinctly remember my family visit during a summer heat wave. People were fainting in the extreme temperature, carried away on stretchers while crowds waited in long lines in the hot sun. The sound of cold soda cans exploding when opened and the geyser of sticky sweet spray shooting into the air punctuated the buzz of anticipation as we snaked our way toward rides sponsored by General Motors, Ford and Pepsi-Cola.
One of the men on our tour recalls a boyhood visit in ’64 with his father at which he learned the latter visited the ’39-40 at this site . He reveals the little known detail that in those seasons prior to the U.S. entry into World War II, the Nazi flag could be seen in New York when the emblem of the Third Reich flew atop the German Pavilion. Even the docent is stunned at this revelation. It’s the first she’s ever heard such report.
She continues our tour pointing out various remnants from the exhibitions. Street markers inscribed with the names of World’s Fair byways such as the Avenue of Progress and Court of the Universe are embedded in the ground. A granite monument marks the location of time capsules buried in 1938 and 1965 as a record of Twentieth Century Civilization. Among its contents are copies of Life Magazine, a Sears Roebuck catalog, cigarettes and seeds of wheat, corn and alfalfa preserved in inert argon and nitrogen gas to remain intact for 5,000 years. Mostly, we imagine the spectacle that once was as we stare at the images in the binders and books and brochures and laminated pages held aloft at the various sites where the actual structures once attracted millions.
Nearby points of interest flanking the fairgrounds are also pointed out. The rooftop of the Port Authority tower on which the helicopters landed when transporting The Beatles to Shea Stadium for their record-breaking concert. A carousel of flying horses built of parts rescued from antique merry-go-rounds at Coney Island was installed at the later Fair and ultimately relocated to the adjacent Queens Zoo.
Our final location is the ruin of the once glorious The New York State Pavilion. The Tent of Tomorrow once supported the largest cable suspension roof in the world. Its floor featured a large scale road map of the Empire State. A familiar sight in subsequent decades as the locale for an alien encounter in Men in Black and the Stark Expo in Iron Man 2, its iconic roof was ultimately declared unstable and removed leaving the terrazzo mosaic exposed and destroyed by the elements.
All that remains of our ambulatory adventure is the invitation to take one of the commemorative posters featuring an architectural drawing of the 1964-65 fairgrounds. A trove of such leftover artifacts was recently unearthed in an archival closet and handed off to the volunteers for dispersal or disposal. Splayed on a folding table alongside the Unisphere fountain where our tour began, the three foot cylindrical rolls are largely left untouched, though the fishbowl filled with lapel pins proclaiming the motto ‘Peace Through Understanding’ is slightly depleted even as its needles prick those who reach in for the vintage souvenir.
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