In 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression, New Yorkers needed a pick-me-up. A group of influential businessmen looked to the economic successes of both Chicago’s Century of Progress in 1893 and 1904's Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, and petitioned to put on an international exhibition in the city. This event, planned for 1939, would at once celebrate the sesquicentennial of George Washington’s inauguration at Federal Hall in New York City, but also offer American’s a way out of their woes with a concurrent, futuristic theme: “The World of Tomorrow.”
The site of the Corona Ash Heap in Queens, where the city’s refuse from coal and wood-burning furnaces had been piled for decades, became the location for the Fair’s grand vision. In the 1930s, such a terraforming project would only be possible with the guiding hand of Robert Moses, then the Commissioner of the New York City Parks Department, in collaboration with the Department of Sanitation. Moses’s plan involved transforming the eyesore and hazardous ash mountains into Flushing-Meadows Corona Park, with the Fair's grounds as a starting step.
World's Fair site in Queens, 1930s.
After four years, where ashes once accumulated came twenty-one pavilions across seven thematic zones, all with unique color schemes guiding the eventual 45 million visitors through the Fair and across a wide variety of attractions. The iconic Trylon and Perisphere, as well as the 60-foot tall sculpture of George Washington (executed in part by the Bronx Piccirilli Brothers, who also created NYPL’s Patience and Fortitude), were the centerpiece structures. In the various zones, visitors could witness the miracle of television at the RCA pavilion, preside over a miniature, futuristic city at the General Motors Pavilion, or look through the first View-Masters. Across World’s Fair Boulevard to the south, the Midway offered penny arcades, Salvador Dalí’s surrealist (and scandalous) Dream of Venus, the Parachute Jump, and Billy Rose’s Aquacade.
For the Fair administrators to cash in on the event, they first had to get people to the fair. The Grand Central Parkway was already under construction (again, a component of Robert Moses’s plan, begun when he was still chairman of the Long Island State Parks Commission). A private airport was being expanded to eventually become LaGuardia Airport, operational (as the New York Municipal Airport) for the Fair’s second season. The Fair constructed a boat basin on Flushing Bay, and partnered with travel agents and services to attract visitors. The idea of transportation is apparent on the iconic Joseph Binder poster, seen here as licensed to the YMCA to advertise its travel services.
See More: Records and Photographs from the 1939-40 World's Fair
The drawing featured in the Polonsky Exhibition of The New York Public Library’s Treasures is a sketch for the gate connecting the BMT-IRT subways and bus drop-off to the fairgrounds (enlarge image here). Even in this early depiction, a number of the visual markers of the Fair—which was tightly controlled by the administration’s Board of Design—are evident: the signature colors of blue and orange, the bright lighting allowed by fluorescent bulbs, and streamlined structure.
Man walking at the Long Island Rail Road station during the World's Fair in Queens, 1939.
The BMT-IRT expanded and renamed their Willets Point Boulevard station at 123rd Street on the Flushing line (now Mets-Willets Point) to include telephone booths, an information kiosk, and a panoramic viewing platform. The station was connected to the Fair by a long pedestrian ramp across the Long Island Railroad tracks to Roosevelt Avenue.
This drawing is just one document of the millions which fill over 2500 boxes comprising the New York World’s Fair 1939-1940 Incorporated records. Supporting a wide variety of research projects, it is one of the most heavily-used and cited archival collections at NYPL. Interested persons are encouraged to contact the Library to discuss access. In the meantime, peek at 13,500 publicity photographs found on NYPL’s Digital Collections.
This story is part of our partnership with the NYPL around the Polonsky Exhibition of The New York Public Library’s Treasures, which showcases items spanning 4,000 years from the Library's research collections—we'll be publishing one NYC-related object a day throughout September, and you can see everything at gothamist.com/treasures. The Treasures exhibition opens Friday, September 24th, 2021 at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Free timed tickets are now available here.
