World's Fare

Finally, here’s a piece from my own collection, a “souvenir” that isn’t really a souvenir at all, but a genuine Fair relic.

Chicago restaurateur Dario Toffenetti opened his first permanent New York establishment in the summer of 1940, after his Fair concession proved a big hit with the public.

By all accounts, Toffenetti was something of a showman, known for the lofty, florid language with which he described his food. Here he is on the lowly spud:

Toffenetti’s was “famous for ham and sweets.” I must confess it took me some time to realize “sweets” meant sweet potatoes. “Spaghetti a la Toffenetti” was also a popular dish, and in typical Toffenetti fashion, was touted as “an old historical recipe of Mrs. Toffenetti, procured from the Castle of Count Belvidere.” By 1948 the story had become a touch more elaborate: “The sauce is made from a treasured recipe of old, discovered by Mrs. Toffenetti among the ruins of the ancient castle of the Count of Bonpensier in Bologna.” Ahem.

Whatever its origins, Mrs. Toffenetti’s meat sauce recipe has survived. Here it is, verbatim, as given in Crosby Gaige’s Food at The Fair:

This recipe is for six people. Two packages of spaghetti, seven ounces each, are used.

First prepare the sauce. Take three ounces [6 tablespoons] of butter and melt in a saucepan over the fire. Chop one ounce of onion very fine, place in butter and fry until brown. Grind one pound of lean round steak and place in pan with butter and onion. Then add a whole can of (six ounces) Paoli Tomato Paste, twelve ounces of water, one level teaspoon of salt, and one pinch of pepper.

Stir the whole mixture and bring to the boiling point, then let it boil for exactly 25 minutes, stirring it from time to time. Then skim surplus fat and your sauce will be ready.

Take a pot with one and a half gallons of water, bring it to the boiling point, add one teaspoon salt, two boxes (seven ounces) unbroken spaghetti, and boil for 25 minutes.

Drain water from spaghetti and place spaghetti in large mixing bowl. Grate two ounces of genuine Parmesan cheese, and sprinkle over the spaghetti in layers. Take your sauce, pour spaghetti [sic], mix thoroughly and place on a large platter, sprinkling over a little more cheese and you are ready to serve.

So guess what I had for dinner last night? With one very minor exception, I followed the recipe for the sauce exactly, right down to the “boiling” time. The only thing I did not do “a la Toffenetti” was measure out one ounce of onion; because A, I didn’t feel like getting out my kitchen scale for such a small amount, and B, because I love onions and one OUNCE of onion isn’t nearly enough. So I just chopped up about a third of a large yellow onion. (Oh. And I also didn't use Paoli tomato paste, whatever that is; I used Trader Joe's organic. Oh. And I also didn't grind my own beef. Trader Joe's again.) I ignored the directions regarding the spaghetti itself (boil for 25 minutes?!), but did follow the bit about tossing it with some Parmesan before saucing it.

The result? Pretty darn tasty, I must say. I really expected that it would be bland, but was quite pleasantly surprised. It was meaty and rich and not overly tomato-y. I’ll definitely be making it again.

By the way, the menu pages above are from the awesome collection of the New York Public Library. They have quite a few from Fair eateries, and you can browse the collection online here.  Bon Appétit!

Abe Goes To The Fair II: Insult and Injury

Louis Slobodkin's statue of the young Lincoln, known variously as The Rail Joiner and Unity, was the runner-up in a government sponsored competition for a sculpture to grace the grounds of the Federal Building at The Fair. By his own account, Slobodkin spent a year creating the 15-foot-high steel-and-plaster statue, which cost the federal government somewhere in the neighborhood of $4000.

Slobodkin at work on The Fair statue

On or shortly before opening day of The Fair, however, understandably proud of and eager to show his wife his accomplishment, Slobodkin searched the grounds in vain: much to his chagrin and displeasure, his Lincoln was nowhere to be found.

Subsequent inquiry revealed that the statue had been not only removed from its location, but smashed! Smashed by order of Theodore T. Hayes, executive assistant to the United States Commissioner for The Fair, apparently acting on the suggestion of a female luncheon companion (left nameless, but pointedly identified as a blonde by several contemporary news sources) who thought the statue in poor taste. Oddly enough, Hayes's boss, Edward J. Flynn, had reportedly sat on the jury that had selected the winning submissions in the first place! (Conflicting reports place the blame for the statue's fate directly with Flynn himself.)

Though The New York Times reported that Fair officials were under no obligation to exhibit works of art for which they had paid (and which they therefore owned), the government, after a considerable amount of bad press regarding the incident, settled the matter by returning Slobodkin's original, smaller-scale maquette and commissioning from him another copy of the statue, this time to the tune of $1600.

A seven-and-a-half-foot cast (half the size of the one intended for The Fair) was quickly produced and placed...in an out-of-the-way basement courtyard of the Department of the Interior Building in Washington, DC. On view since August 1939, the statue can still be seen today. But it certainly deserves better.

Above, the Slobodkin statue in its current location at the US Deaprtment of the Interior Buidilng

Another copy of the statue was cast and placed in Lincoln, Nebraska in 2000.

Meet Their Majesties

In my opinion (one that is likely shared by many Fair enthusiasts and collectors), the single most important and valuable Fair "relic," the ultimate "souvenir," has got to be the guestbook that Fair President Grover Whalen kept. Filled with the signatures of visiting celebrities and dignitaries, the King and Queen of England signed the book when they visited The Fair in June, 1939. (They arrived late.)

New York Public Library

I believe I read somewhere that there are several of these books in existence; I got to see one two years ago when "Centuries of Progress: America's World's Fairs, 1853-1982" came to The Long Island Museum at Stony Brook. The book was quite the highlight of the exhibit, opened to the page bearing the royal signatures (which occupy a page all their own).

The book on display at Stony Brook is in a private collection. Alas, I can't show you a picture, since photography was prohibited. (Actually, I had my brother-in-law snap a few surreptitious pix with his phone, but they're so blurry that it doesn't make sense to post them.)

But it's nice to know the owner is amenable to exhibiting his treasure; hopefully it will be available for viewing again in the not-too-distant future!

Great Scot!

One of The Fair's most popular attractions was the railroads exhibit, and it's not hard to see why. The Duchess of Hamilton, one of the London Midland and Scottish Railway's luxury trains, was sent across the pond for a 3,000 mile tour of the colonies before being put on display at The Fair. The Duchess was, however, first re-christened The Coronation Scot. The real Coronation Scot was a slightly older train, inaugurated in 1937 for the coronation (hence its name) of George VI. (The real Scot was also blue with silver accents.)

The Duchess had also to be fitted with a headlamp and bell in order to make her legal for American rails. After The Fair, the Duchess became something of a war refugee, not returning home to England until 1942.

"The Coronation Scot" (far left) at The Fair

What a pity we don't
travel like this anymore!

Not long ago, The Duchess of Hamilton's locomotive was given a make-over to restore her to her original streamlined gorgeousness, and was unveiled in 2009 at Britain's National Railway Museum in York, where she can been seen and admired today.

The Eagle Has Landed

High atop two flagpoles flanking what is now Industry Pond (their original location in the park is a bit of a mystery) in Flushing Meadows Corona Park sit two stylized art deco eagles, retained form the 1939 Fair. Though said at various times to have been "gifts" from Nazi Germany, this myth is, thankfully, almost wholly discredited today.

Documentary evidence in the New York Public Library and elsewhere shows the eagles to be the work of sculptor Robert Foster. Indeed, the eagles are perfectly in keeping with Foster's demonstrated style; compare them with his Mercury sculpture, which adorned the Ford Pavilion, for instance.

Assertions of this alleged Nazi connection are rendered even more silly when one remembers that the eagle is the national bird of the United States...its presence in the park would be wholly expected and thoroughly unremarkable.

Elektro in New York Now Through March 31 Only

There’s not a hell of a lot to be seen at the Museum of the City of New York’s exhibition Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s, which relies heavily on photographs, video and ephemera not always optimally reproduced. In addition, there’s a handful of souvenirs, a few exhibit pieces (like the Sunbeam T-9 toaster), some striking models (including a very impressive Trylon and Perisphere), and artists’ renderings of both realized and un-realized fair buildings, structures, and exhibits. (MCNY’s exhibit covers six fairs, so the amount of material from 1939 is actually quite minimal.)

The real star of the show, though, has got to be the life-size replica of Elektro, the walking, talking, cigarette-smoking robot that wowed audiences at the Westinghouse Pavilion in ‘39. The original Elektro resides in Mansfield, Ohio, in a museum that’s only open a few hours on weekends during the milder months. Presumably the Elektro at MCNY is the replica created and owned by the Mansfield museum, though MCNY provides no detail. And, to tell the truth, I thought that he looks like he’s made out of plastic or fiberglass, not metal...



Elektro was featured in Westinghouse's promotional film The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair, which probably more accurately should have been titled The Middleton Family at the Westinghouse Pavilion. Elektro also appeared in the 1960 comedy Sex Kittens Go to College under the name Thinko. 

Elektro will be at the Museum of the City of New York now through the end of March.

Souvenir lapel pin, featuring Elektro, from 
the Westinghouse Pavilion (Author's Collection)

A View From the Bridge

The Bridge of Flags in 1939;
from the Richard Wurts/Dover paperback

As previously noted, anyone who knows anything about The Fair knows that there are two structures from 1939 still standing in situ in Flushing Meadows: the New York City Building and the Boat House. But it's curious to me how many overlook an important third Fair structure from 1939--the Bridge of Flags. Also referred to as the "Spillway" bridge, it led from the Town of Tomorrow to "Gardens on Parade" and into the foreign zone, which lay to the northeast.












Perhaps its anonymity can be attributed to the fact that the bridge lay on the periphery of the fairgrounds, and does not seem to be indicated by name on any Fair maps. And while one can purchase postcards of the "Bridge of Wings" (one of two bridges that spanned Grand Central Parkway and provided access form the main fairgrounds to the Transportation Zone, the other being the Bridge of Wheels) on eBay, it would seem that the Bridge of Flags was not deemed important enough to be immortalized on a postcard.

December, 2012

To what porpoise?

Today the bridge goes by the name "Porpoise Bridge", which is the name I am assuming was assigned to it for the '64-65 Fair. Why, I cannot imagine...just how many porpoises show up in Flushing Meadows?