The New Queens Museum

Here's a general view of the interior of the newly renovated Queens Museum. Notice the "of Art" has been dropped from its name; this is due in large part to the recognition that the museum building and its collections have an historical relevance as well as an artistic one.

The City of New York IV: I Have Seen the Future

It was with a fair amount of trepidation that I walked from the Shea Stadium (as I will forever refer to it) subway stop on the 7 train through Flushing Meadows-Corona Park to see the recently renovated and re-opened Queens Museum, aka The New York City Building.

I needn’t have feared! As far as this Fair enthusiast is concerned, the New York City Building is better than ever!

Gone from the east façade (the “Fair” side of the building) is that hideous silver drum, that darkroom-type revolving door that hadn’t been used as an entrance for years, anyway. (Photo Here) The original open-air colonnade remains mostly enclosed, but the new unobtrusive and unobstructed wall of glass gives visitors and Fair buffs a much better idea of the structure’s original appearance. So much so that I don’t even mind the panels that have transformed the west façade into a fiber optic light show. The west façade, facing as it does Grand Central Parkway, was never really intended to be the main prospect, anyway; it’s a view many museum visitors still will not notice, unless they arrive by car. 

And what’s really kind of amazing is that while the interior has been expanded with what looks like an enormous barrel-vaulted ceiling, you get no hint of this standing on the ground outside; the roofline remains visibly unaltered, further preserving the original 1939 façade as much as possible. 

Kudos must go to Grimshaw (the architectural firm responsible for the renovation and re-design) partner-in-charge Mark Husser, who said recently in an interview with Architectural Record:

“Our goal for the design was to reinforce the mission of the museum within a historic building that has an architectural quality of its own.”

NY Public Library

Then there’s the uncovering of an original building feature, one that I found terribly TERRIBLY exciting (seriously—my heart skipped a beat!). Stopping briefly in the men’s room, I was immediately struck by what I was certain was an original design element: two sections of blue and orange wall tile. I could, of course, be mistaken, but it LOOKED old, and, as it was not carried throughout the entire room, gave the fragmentary impression of a remnant, rather than a new, conscious design decision. A quick stop at the NYPL’s Web site confirmed my hunch: the photographic evidence speaks for itself, I think. Of course, I shall have to confirm this in the interests of accuracy--Grimshaw Architects did not immediately return my phone call--but I feel fairly confident that my hunch is correct.

Next time we’ll take a look inside the museum…

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?

Set a Spell

Naturally an area as large as Flushing Meadows-Corona Park would require enough public outdoor seating to accommodate Fair-goers with weary, aching, feet. Two new park bench designs were created for The Fair. Of the 6700 benches that covered the Fair’s 1200+ acres, 1500 were backless, designed so as to not interefere with the view of certain landscaped sections of The Fair.

The benches were manufactured by Kenneth Lynch & Sons in Oxford, CT. Lynch is still in business and still producing the benches today. You can even buy one for your own garden! The 6-foot bench will run you about $700.00.

Benches in storage between seasons;
black-andwhite photos from the New York Public Library

Gloria, cold and camera-shy, on
on of the "Jetson" benches, 2005

A new bench with a much more futuristic look (David Dunlap in The New York Times described it as having “boomerang-shaped, Jetsons-style legs”) was designed for the 1964-65 Fair. You can still see these sleek aluminum beauties at Flushing Meadows. (Also originally manufactured by Lynch, a cast-iron version of this design is available from them as well.)

So what became of all those benches from the first Fair? You can still see the '39 design, including the backless version, all over town. My first thought was that those original 6700 benches were relocated throughout the City sometime between 1940 and 1964. That may well have been the case, but according to Timothy Lynch (Kenneth Lynch's son), none of the benches seen in various City parks today are from The Fair. This only makes sense: a cast iron and wood bench exposed to the elements is simply not going to survive for 70+ years.

BUT...also according to Mr. Lynch, an original '39 bench does, in fact, survive, and is housed in the Olmsted Center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. Originally constructed as the administration offices of the '64 Fair, the Olmsted Center is today headquarters to the Queens Parks Department.

So today I used a PTO day and rode out to The Fairgrounds. To find The Bench. I was simultaneously delighted and dismayed. The bench is there, sure enough, but it suffers the indignity of being relegated to a thoroughly dreary, drab, and depressing hallway; the pictures speak for themselves. Everyone was really nice, and I even got a lady to agree to take my picture on The Bench. But really, this noble Fair survivor deserves better, is worthy of a setting befitting its heritage, one that will enable it to be seen and appreciated by more people. The Queens Museum across the park would be a much more ideal location, I should think.

I noticed a few things about the bench, however: the right arm (right as you're facing the bench, not as you're sitting on it) is of a heavier casting than the center and right arms; the foot of the left arm end does not have the bolt hole seen on the other two arms and on more recently produced benches; and the decorative detailing on the left arm is also slightly, though obviously, different. I suspect that the left arm is original, and the center and right arms are replacements. From when, I couldn't say. The wood slats are considerably worn, and full of worm holes; these could certainly be original. And of course they wouldn't have been painted bright orange in '39! Still, this is the closest to an original Fair park bench that we have. 

Next time you're in the vicinity of the Olmsted Center, stop in and have a look; the gals at the the front desk will direct you down the correct corridor.

More on that plate glass chair...

A little more research on the plate glass chairs from the Glass Center revealed that another one was sold at auction in 2010 for a little over 9 thousand dollars, nearly twice the going rate in 2003. The auction site cites Arts & Architecture magazine, mentioning that the chair had been sold by J. W. Robinson Co., a high-end Los Angeles home furnishings retailer.

A quick trip to the New York Public Library confirmed this: there was the chair, unmistakably on page 15 of the October, 1947 issue of Arts & Architecture in a Robinson ad. But it's not quite the same chair: the manufacturer is given as Turchin; the glass does not appear to be clear; the cushion appears thicker; and the Robinson chair clearly has additional padding along the inside top back.



I find very little information regarding Turchin on the 'net: they seem to have started out as a much smaller operation, producing, among other things, decorative glass blocks, bookends and aquaria. No mention is made in the Robinson ad of the original chair design, designer, or any Fair connection. Did Turchin simply copy the design? Who knows?

But it would seem that there could certainly be a few chairs out there that date from after The Fair. Assuming, though, that the Brooklyn and Carnegie Museums have done their homework, I am fairly confident that their chairs are Fair originals.

Fantasy in Glass

So today we rode out to The Brooklyn Museum to see...

The glass chair is displayed next to a Kem Webber dressing table and stool from 1934

THIS AMAZING PIECE OF AWESOMENESS. The chair, formed from a single piece of thick plate glass, was designed by (or attributed to) Louis Dierra and produced by the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company for display in the Glass Center Pavilion at The Fair. Due to the impracticality of the medium, however, very few of these chairs were ever manufactured; in fact, it's not certain that any other than the Fair samples were. So few seem to exist today that I think it's likely that the ones you can see, at the Brooklyn and the Carnegie Museum of Art, are actual chairs from the Fair exhibit.

Still others are in private collections. One came up for auction at Phillips, de Pury & Company in 2003, and went for a little under 5 grand!

I would sell my mother to own one of these chairs!

Abe Goes To The Fair

Though not created for The Fair, Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s Abraham Lincoln: The Man (aka Standing Lincoln) was displayed at The Fair as part of the Illinois exhibit. Not surprisingly, the Saint-Gaudens Lincoln was one of a number of sculptures (I know of at least 4) depicting the 16th president, both at the Illinois exhibit and throughout The Fair.

The Fair statue was an artist-authorized reduction (one of only sixteen known to exist, and one of the first two produced) of the original, created for Chicago’s Lincoln Park in 1887. I am quite certain that the cast exhibited at The Fair is now on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

According to the Met's press release, the bronze, acquired from a private collector, was originally owned by Clara Stone Hay, the widow of Lincoln’s onetime private assistant secretary, John M. Hay. The note on the back of the photo of the statue in the New York Public Library's Fair collection (below) indicates that it was lent by the children of John and Clara Hay. So, unless the Hays had several casts of the statue (which is unlikely), the Met statue is the one exhibited at The Fair.

The Open Road Leads to...Bear Mountain

Jo Davidson was one of just a handful of prominent sculptors given he honor and distinction of having more than one work exhibited at The Fair. Davidson's larger-than-lifesize Walt Whitman was moved to Bear Mountain State Park in upstate New York shortly after The Fair. It is unique in that it is one of but a few Fair pieces cast permanently in bronze rather than in temporary, disposable plaster. Visiting the statue today offers a rare opportunity to experience an actual piece of Fair history. (There's another cast of Davidson's Whitman in Philadelphia, but the Bear Mountain statue is the Real Deal.)

Well, this was inevitable: the author and Walt, May, 2010

The Eiffel Tower of Brooklyn

Another Fair relic known to every Fair enthusiast is the parachute jump, which has been a fixture of Coney Island's boardwalk since shortly after The Fair closed. The ride, originally sponsored by Life Savers, was moved to Steeplechase Park in 1941, and continued to thrill (according to wikipedia at least) until 1968. The black and white photo below (from New York Public Library) shows the parachute jump in operation at The Fair.

Above: a really cool view of the parachute jump from the Aquacade. The boat house can be seen to the left at the foot of the jump. (Non-copyrighted photograph from a recent eBay auction.)

Two of Coney's major thrill rides that actually pre-date the parachute jump by more than a decade are still in operation today: The Wonder Wheel and the Cyclone. 

Peg-Leg Pete

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's Peter Stuyvesant was exhibited at The Fair outside the Netherlands pavilion (Stuyvesant was Dutch, of course). Another Fair original, this statue, which depicts Peter Stuyvesant with his famous peg-leg, now stands--interestingly enough--in Stuyvesant Square (17th Street and 2nd Avenue) in Manhattan. 

The White Mana Myth

It is an assertion repeated all over the internet. Lent credence by no less than The Gray Lady herself, The New York Times, it appears to be almost universally accepted, and wholly unchallenged. I am speaking of the common belief that the White Mana Diner in Jersey City, New Jersey, made its debut at The Fair as "The Diner of the Future".

Like probably dozens before me, I made the pilgrimage. After a ride on the PATH train, and a short walk through some rather dicey areas on a very hot day, we enjoyed some sliders that were certainly tasty, even if they could hardly lay claim to the title "Burger of the Future"!

I wanted it to be true, I really did. I wanted to believe that I was actually sitting and eating in a restaurant that had been at The Fair. That the burgers I was downing were the direct descendants of that first ground beef served up to hungry Fair-goers in 1939!

But, you know what? I don't believe it. In the three years since my visit to Jersey City, I have not been able to find one shred of documentary or corroborative evidence that the White Mana Diner (or any other diner, for that matter) was ever at The Fair.

It does not appear in any guide book. It does not appear in Crosby Gaige's "Food at the Fair". It does not appear in lists of places to eat distributed at The Fair. Surely, something as important as "The Diner of the Future" would have been advertised and promoted.

Where's the BEEF!?



Then there is the question of time. By all (the accepted) accounts the diner was bought and moved to Jersey City in 1946--a full six years after The Fair closed. While it is certainly possible that the diner operated somewhere else between 1940 and 1946, this begs the question: where was it during the War? The "official" account makes no mention of this period, and with all we know about war-time economy and rationing, I find it nearly impossible to believe that such a heap of metal was allowed to lie about undisturbed and untouched for the duration, when even the Oscars were made of plaster because every ounce of metal was needed for the War effort.

So here's the challenge, and remember, I'd really love it if the White Mana myth were proven to be true. I will give $100 to the first person--any person--able to provide documentary and corroborative proof that the White Mana Diner in Jersey City (or its sister in Hackensack, for that matter) was, in fact, at The Fair in 1939.

Now the fine print: documentary and corroborative proof MUST be in the form of a PHOTOGRAPH of the diner in situ at The Fair, and recognizable as such (i.e., another establishing landmark or landmarks such as the Trylon and/or Perisphere must be visible), and/or a LISTING of the diner in an official Fair publication, one that is generally recognized as authentic by the average Fair enthusiast and/or collector. Good luck!