World’s Fair of 1939 exhibit

An exhibition currently on display at the Queens Museum of Art (QMA) is giving viewers an inside look at the construction of the 1939 New York World’s Fair, which was held in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
“Future Perfect: Re-Constructing the 1939 New York World’s Fair” will be on display through August 14. It includes original blueprints and other documents that “illustrate the colossal undertaking that was the creation of the fair.”
Exhibition curator Louise Weinberg, who is the Registrar/Archives Manager at QMA, explained that the museum owns about 13 original blueprints. In addition, it has a large collection of press photos from the World’s Fair Corporation that documented its creation, beginning in 1935. The museum also has photos of some of the pavilions being built.
Weinberg said she felt the exhibition was timely since the museum, which is housed in a building originally built for the fair, is currently undergoing reconstruction.
“It’s a timely exhibition because it really speaks about the genesis of our building at a moment in time when we’re going through a transformation as well,” Weinberg said.
She also described the museum’s location as being “a locust of memory.”
“I think World’s Fairs in general are a kind of a…place of fantasy,” she said, adding that the builders and designers have created an expression of what they thought the future would be like. “I think there’s a hopeful quality that they [the fairs] have and it gives people a chance to dream and think about the future.”
Weinberg said that creating the 1939 New York World’s Fair was a “vast undertaking.”
“It was as if they had to build a small city,” she said.
The best designers and most inventive architects were brought in to design the fair’s building and exhibitions, Weinberg explained.
“You have this incredible burst of creativity that was brought together at one time,” Weinberg said. “You get a really rich mixture, a conglomeration of style and points of view that go to create this fair.”
“Future Perfect” helps document the fair by highlighting different aspects of its creation. For instance, there are blueprints of the steelwork for the Trylon and Perisphere. There is also a photographer where Robert Moses, Grover Whalen and Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia can be seen looking and blueprints.
Noting the big plans that Moses had for the park and the fair, Weinberg said that the exhibition and fair’s creation can serve as a lesson for how someone can “make grand schemes happen.”
The Queens Museum of Art is open from noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. In July and August, it will be open noon to 8 p.m. on Fridays.
Suggested admission is $5 for adults and $2.50 for seniors and children. It is free for museum members and children under five.
For more information, visit www.queensmuseum.org or call 718-592-9700.