A Look At New York World’s Fair on its 60th Anniversary

Summary

All of It: A Look At New York World’s Fair on its 60th Anniversary

Host: Alison Stewart
Guest: Lynn Malazzewski, Assistant Director of Archives and Collections at the Queens Museum
Release Date: April 22, 2025
Episode Focus: The 60th anniversary of the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, explored through the Queens Museum’s exhibition "A Billion Dollar Dream."

---

Introduction to the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair

Alison Stewart opens the episode by introducing the significance of the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, marking its 60th anniversary. She highlights the Queens Museum’s exhibition, "A Billion Dollar Dream," which revisits the fair through cultural, political, and social lenses. The exhibition features archival items such as staff uniforms, postcards, and historical footage, offering insights into how the fair represented ideas of progress, nationhood, and cultural identity to over 50 million visitors.

Quote:
Lynn Malazzewski explains the exhibition’s title:
“We pulled that title from a wide array of research that we did. And this was the title of an article in Life magazine on January 24, 1964... this was quite the heroic feat to really put this fair together.”
[03:11]

---

Funding and Organization of the Fair

Lynn delves into the financial aspects of the fair, detailing the substantial investments from New York City and federal bonds. She contrasts the 1964-65 fair with the 1939 edition, emphasizing that the latter was orchestrated by the Bureau of International Expositions, while the 1964-65 event was a private endeavor spearheaded by Robert Moses. This shift aimed to rejuvenate New York City's economy and bolster its status as a tourist hub.

Quote:
Lynn on the role of Robert Moses:
“This fair was meant to address the general populace... offering opportunities for work, bringing construction trades, a lot of business... it was pretty easy to get the buy-in once the ball started rolling in the early 60s.”
[05:03]

---

Technological Marvels and Exhibits

The episode features vivid listener memories of various exhibits, showcasing the fair's blend of entertainment and innovation. Notable highlights include:

• Sinclair Dinoland Pavilion: Featuring life-size dinosaurs and the introduction of plastic dinosaurs made via injectomold machines.

  Quote:
  Alison Stewart recalls:
  “I have some memories of the World's Fair coming out of the Sinclair exhibit, the big green dinosaur...”
  [08:23]

• Ford Magic Skyway: A collaboration with Walt Disney, this exhibit took visitors on a futuristic journey through civilization, emphasizing automobile culture and mobility.

  Quote:
  Lynn on the Magic Skyway:
  “It really is an incredible display... showing what 1960 would look like.”
  [45:07]

• Clairol Pavilion: Focused on beauty innovations, it allowed visitors to experiment with different hair colors through interactive mirrors.

  Quote:
  Lynn discusses the Clairol Pavilion’s gendered portrayal:
  “There is an emphasis on a type of woman... focusing on beauty and leisure.”
  [35:18]

---

Listener Memories and Personal Stories

Multiple callers share their nostalgic experiences, reflecting on how the fair influenced their lives and careers:

• Thomas from Bay Ridge: Recounts favorite exhibits and the fair's impact on his childhood memories.
  Quote:
  “I still have my Heinz pickle pin.”
  [11:32]

• Judy from White Plains: Describes the excitement of free tickets and memorable attractions like flamenco dancers and Belgian waffles.
  Quote:
  “I remember these gigantic balloons that you had, like, beans in them that you could sort of bang and make noise.”
  [12:19]

• Patrick from Manhattan: Shares how the fair inspired his career in event design, highlighting exhibits like the GE Carousel of Progress and IBM displays.
  Quote:
  “The carnival spirit of the whole thing was so disorienting and so exciting...”
  [14:48]

---

Social and Political Context

Lynn addresses the contrasting narratives of optimism and underlying social issues during the fair:

• Civil Rights Protests: The opening day saw significant protests organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), demanding better integration in the building trades and addressing stalled school integration efforts.

  Quote:
  Lynn on the protests:
  “...Core organized a protest that involved up to 2,000 cars on the highways... over 300 arrests were made that day.”
  [19:39]

• Financial Challenges: Despite high expectations, the fair did not meet its visitor goals, resulting in financial shortfalls that Robert Moses had anticipated and warned about early on.

  Quote:
  Lynn on financial outcomes:
  “...Moses never paid back the $24 million.”
  [22:35]

• Workforce Diversity: Despite the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Lynn notes that workforce demographics at the fair were still predominantly male and white, revealing gaps between policy and practice.

  Quote:
  Lynn on workforce demographics:
  “There is a way in which it's a lot of public relations... but it becomes clear looking at the photos that perhaps time was taking a second to catch up with the policy.”
  [29:37]

---

Technological Innovations and Their Legacy

The episode explores how the fair showcased futuristic technologies that resonate today:

• Picture Phones: An early version of video calling, though initially unpopular due to privacy concerns.

  Quote:
  Lynn on picture phones:
  “It fundamentally is FaceTime. It's Zoom... people did not want to humor having a video of them when they picked up the phone.”
  [39:44]

• GE Pavilion’s Nuclear Fusion Display: Aimed to normalize nuclear energy amidst lingering fears post-World War II.

  Quote:
  Lynn on nuclear fusion exhibits:
  “...meant to get people used to the idea of nuclear energy as an efficient form of energy.”
  [40:18]

---

Environmental and Cultural Reflections

Lynn discusses the environmental narratives presented at the fair, particularly in the Ford Magic Skyway's depiction of rainforest transformation, reflecting the era's dominant view of nature as a resource to be mastered.

Quote:
Lynn on environmental portrayals:
“...meant to be conquered, meant to be mastered by humanity, and meant to really allow humans to be more mobile and more kind of progressive...”
[45:07]

Additionally, the exhibition emphasizes the overlooked contributions of international pavilions, highlighting how nations like Germany and the Philippines used the fair to project their cultural identities amidst global tensions and transitions.

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Legacy and Remaining Relics

The conversation concludes with reflections on the fair's lasting legacy and existing relics in Queens:

• Queens Museum's Panorama of New York City: An enduring model that continues to attract visitors.

• Original Mosaics and the Column of Jeresh: Remaining artifacts that offer tangible connections to the fair's vibrant history.

Quote:
Lynn on relics around Queens:
“We have the Column of Jeresh from the Jordan Pavilion and original mosaics at the Passerelle... everyone needs to come see it immediately.”
[51:06]

---

Conclusion

Alison Stewart wraps up the episode by reiterating the impactful narratives shared by Lynn Malazzewski and the listeners, underscoring the 1964-65 World’s Fair's multifaceted legacy. The exhibition "A Billion Dollar Dream" serves as a comprehensive reflection on an event that symbolized technological optimism, cultural exchange, and the complex socio-political landscape of its time.

Final Thoughts:
The fair is remembered as the "last of pure optimism," a moment when technological advancements were celebrated without immediate consideration of their long-term implications. This reflection helps contemporary audiences appreciate both the marvels and the shortcomings of such grand-scale cultural exhibitions.

---

Notable Quotes:

1. Lynn Malazzewski on Fair’s Ambition:
   “...this was quite the heroic feat to really put this fair together.”
   [03:11]

2. Alison Stewart on Personal Impact:
   “The carnival spirit of the whole thing was so disorienting and so exciting and really optimistic and futuristic.”
   [14:48]

3. Listener Patrick on Future Influence:
   “I think it really influenced me going into my career, which wound up being store display and event design and event planning.”
   [16:31]

4. Lynn on Picture Phones:
   “People were so concerned about being called when they had rollers, their hair being called when the house was a mess...”
   [39:44]

5. Listener Diana on Maryland Pavilion:
   “My father was the very first person let into the fair... he was responsible for getting it fixed.”
   [43:52]

---

This comprehensive overview captures the essence of the 60th-anniversary episode, weaving together expert insights, personal anecdotes, and critical analyses to present a multifaceted portrait of the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair and its enduring legacy in the cultural fabric of New York City.

Transcript

[Alison Stewart]

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[Lynn Malazzewski]

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[Alison Stewart]

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[Lynn Malazzewski]

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[Alison Stewart]

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[Lynn Malazzewski]

This IS all of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I am really grateful that you are here. On today's show, we'll learn about the play becoming Eve. It just got a whole bunch of Drama League nominations. We'll also have a live and studio performance from musician Katie Gavin. And we'll talk about Magnolia Baker, new Handbook of Icebox Desserts. And by the way, Happy Earth Day. Coming up on the show this Friday, we'll talk about how New York City is not just home to 8 million people, but it's also a fish spawning ground, a migratory bird rest stop and home to all kinds of plant life. We'll speak with the author of the new book Wild Experience, the Amazing Nature in and Around New York City. That is our plan. So let's get this started with a billion dollar dream. Today marks the anniversary of the New York World's Fair. The first season opened on April 22, 1964. One of the most ambitious events in New York City's history promised a glimpse into a technological utopia. Now, A little over 60 years later, an exhibition at the Queens Museum is taking a closer look. It's called A billion dollar the 196465 New York World's Fair. On its 60th anniversary open last year, it revisits the fair through the cultural, political and social lens, reexamining how ideas of progress, nationhood and cultural identity were advertised to over 50 million visitors. The show features items from the museum's archives, including staff uniforms, postcards, footage capturing the fair in its heyday. Joining me now is Lynn Malozewski, assistant director of archives and collections at the Queen's Museum, who worked on the exhibition, which is on display through Sunday, July 13th. Lynn, welcome to the show.

[Lynn Malozewski]

Hi Alison. Thank you for having me.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Listeners. We would love to hear from you. Did you attend the World's Fair? Do you have any souvenirs or memorabilia from your visit? Maybe a postcard, Maybe a map? We want to hear your stories. Give us a call, 212-433-WNYC 212-433. 9692 can call in. You can join us on air, or you can text to us at that number, or you can always find us on social media. Llovenyc this exhibition is called A Billion Dollar Dream. Why did you call it that?

[Lynn Malozewski]

So we pulled that title from a wide array of research that we did. And this was the title of an article in Life magazine on January 24, 1964. And the article really went into the background of the fair, how much funding had gone into it. And what you come to learn from that article is over $24 million of New York City funding went into the fair, $35 million of federal bonds went into the fair, and they even anticipated about $30 million from ticket sales and pavilion rentals. So this was quite the heroic feat to really put this fair together.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Now, there was a New York world's fair in 1939. Talking about 64 and 65. How is that different from what happened in 39?

[Lynn Malozewski]

Absolutely. So the 39 fair was more of your traditional World's Fair. It was run by the Bureau of International Expositions, and it was a fair that brought together international participants as well as corporate, similar to the 64 World's Fair. But the difference really was the 64 Fair was actually a private endeavor. There was a 1962 fair held in Seattle, and the rules of the BIE, as it was called, was that only one fair could occur in a country every decade. So in hopes of infusing the New York City economy and bringing more light and interest to New York City as a tourist mecca, Robert Moses really pushed to have, with a board of executives, philanthropists, business owners, and varied stakeholders to have the fair in New York City.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

You knew you had to say, Robert Moses. Everyone's going to be talking about New York. New York City's Park Commissioner, Robert Moses, he advertised the fair to potential investors. How did he get them to buy in?

[Lynn Malozewski]

Absolutely. So this fair was really meant to address the general populace. It was, when we think of a time far before the Internet, a place where people could come together and learn about new ideas, they could find new foods, new cultures that they had never been exposed to. And the buy in was really about not only bringing corporate and and tourism money to the city, but also offering opportunities for work, bringing construction trades, a lot of business, obviously bringing local stores, local restaurants, a ton of new visitors. So it was pretty easy to get the buy in once the ball started rolling in the early 60s.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

There's a 1964 television commercial from the New York City Transit Authority showing how happy passengers were traveling to the World's Fair on the brand new Bluebird subway cars. Let's take a listen.

[Alison Stewart]

Part of the fun of the World's.

[Lynn Malozewski]

Fair is the subway special that takes you there.

[Alison Stewart]

There's a good time feeling in the.

[Lynn Malozewski]

Air on the subway special to the World's Fair. Trains are easy to catch anywhere, anytime, night or day.

[Alison Stewart]

Just pay 15 cents, hop aboard and.

[Lynn Malozewski]

You'Re on your gets. Part of the fun of the World's Fair is the subway special that takes you there.

[Alison Stewart]

Your Transit Authority has 430 spanking new picture window cars for the elevated ride to the World's Fair. Express trains start at Times Square in Grand Central and you're safely at the fair in less than 20 minutes. Take it easy.

[Lynn Malozewski]

Take the subway.

[Alison Stewart]

Yes.

[Lynn Malozewski]

Part of the fun of the World's.

[Alison Stewart]

Fair is the subway special that takes you there.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Had to wait all the way till the end. Instead of the fair being in Manhattan or Brooklyn or the Bronx, it was at Queens and Flushing Meadow Corona Park. Why did Robert Moses feel like Queens was the right place for the fair?

[Lynn Malozewski]

It's incredible how you see this narrative of Queens being the center of New York City play out throughout a number of different advertising materials, from disposable placemats you might have seen at a diner to Shell gas station maps that were being given away at gas stations in the Tri State. There was really this emphasis that Queens was the center. And we see that illuminated through really the fact that all highways intersected really in Queens. As much as I do love that subway ad, as we know, Robert Moses was more of an automobiles type of guy. And the fact that we had several highways that were either expanded or extended for the occasion of the World's Fair, including the Grand Central Parkway, the Van Wyck Expressway. These roads and automobile culture was such a foundation of the New York World's Fair in 1964 and 39 as well. Similar highway work was done to get people to the fair and really emphasize mobility, as in a way, a uniquely American trait, but also really a touchstone of New York City.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Let's take some calls. Thomas is calling in from Bay Ridge. Hey, Thomas, thanks for making the time to call all of it today.

[Alison Stewart]

Hey, Allison, thank you. Wonderful segment here. Yeah, I have some memories of the World's Fair coming out of the Sinclair exhibit, the big green dinosaur back then. These people were having a catch and they were demonstrating the Frisbee, throwing this plastic disc back and forth, just looking at them rather strangely. So I guess it was from whammo back then that made the first Thursday and the pavilions, all the little food pavilions were, were there. And my dad didn't have a lot of money back then, or he had money, but he didn't want walk around the fair and see all that stuff. And so we wound up sucking on ketchup packets. We went in there and he wouldn't buy us anything to eat.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

That's such a funny story. Thomas, thank you for calling. Did you want to respond?

[Lynn Malozewski]

Yeah, I mean, so many good points. Thank you, Thomas, for that. I want to draw attention to the fact that there was a comical contradiction of the world's fair, especially 64, in that it was pitched as an educational endeavor and definitely something that was focused on children having an excellent time in addition to adults, in addition to the display of industry. But Robert Moses refused to let children in for free and children still needed to pay a dollar to get in, which caused a huge stink as you can imagine. And there was a concession made later in the fair, a few months in that school children with teachers could actually be 25 cents per child. So there, there was a ton of, in a way, controversy about how expensive the fair was. And this was, you know, not a small fee for people. I also do love Thomas's memory of the Sinclair Dinoland Pavilion, which was something that comes up all the time in conversations with fans and people who attended the fair. That, that was a really impactful moment. You had nine life size dinosaurs in a display in their environment that taught you about these dinosaurs, but in a lot of ways was wrapped up in the subversive messaging of the fair quite frequently wherein this pavilion was for Sinclair Oil. So you're learning about dinosaurs. You're also taking home plastic dinosaurs, which was a brand new technology, the injectomold machine which could make them on site. You could see them being made in front of you. But it was fundamentally an oil company pitching the importance of crude oil, the multitude of uses for oil, and really again, all of these ideas were really rolled up together. I also want to note that the food was a major part. I can't tell you the fact that many people remember first and foremost the Belgian waffles.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Oh really?

[Lynn Malozewski]

That is by far, and I'm sure I have a lot of fans listening to this, nodding along. But the Belgian waffles with strawberries and whipped cream were a mainstay of people's memories.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

My guest is Lynn Malazzewski, assistant director of Archives and Collections at the Queen's Museum, who worked on the exhibition. It's called A Billion Dollar Dream. It's on view through July 13th. Looking at the 60 years since the 1964. 65 World's Fair. This says I was born in 1960. Over the two years it was open, my family attended 76 times. Always on the seven line. I still have my Heinz pickle pin. Let's talk to Judy from White Plains. Hi, Judy. Thanks for calling, all of it.

[Alison Stewart]

Hi, thanks so much. My sister could drive, and we went to a supermarket in White Plains, and they were giving. They gave away tickets for free. We could get in for free. So my mom and my. My mom's like, okay, so go. You can drive. Take your sisters to the World's Fair. So with our free tickets in hand, we drove in and beelined it for the flamenco dancers. My sister had a huge crush on all of the most. These most incredibly handsome flamenco dancer guys. And we, of course, you had to mention the Belgian waffles, because they put that at the very end. And you would be thinking. You'd be thinking about it the whole time you were there. And then, oh, my God, you finally got to get your Belgian waffles. I don't think there was ever anything in the entire world that was ever that delicious on a hot day. You just had a wonderful day learning about all kinds of crazy things. Like, I think we sat in a car and went through some thing like future World. Is that. Was that there or was that Disney World? I can't remember.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Do you know if that was there?

[Lynn Malozewski]

Yep. So it seems you might be referring to the Ford Magic Skyway, which was in the transportation area, was the Ford Pavilion. Highly, highly memorable. It was a pavilion that was a collaboration, actually, with Disney, Walt Disney. It was one of the four pavilions that he worked on. And you fundamentally got into a Ford Mustang and you rode up a spiral into a futuristic world of taking you through civilization from the very beginning of time through the present. And many of the car exhibits were really compelling in that way that they literally put you in the future and oftentimes took you through the history of civilization through a viewpoint that really prioritized the automobile. So you're thinking of, in the Magic Skyway, the invention of the wheel as the literal kind of catalyst of society and the catalyst of evolution to the point that not only the 64 visitor was in, but to the future.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Let's talk to Patrick, who's calling in from Manhattan. Hi, Patrick. Thank you so much for calling, all of it.

[Alison Stewart]

Thank you. It's good to hear. It's exciting to hear because I went to the World's Fair when I was 4 years old with my family from Cincinnati, Ohio. And I have, like, vivid, vivid memories of the GE Carousel of Progress, the IBM exhibit, as people said, the greasy dinosaur injection mold from the Sinclair exhibit, and the New York Pavilion, which just looked just like something from the Jetsons. I was very ready to be flying around in cars after seeing the New York Pavilion with a sort of floating space or little space capsule things. My family stayed at the Americana Hotel. We still had. We kept one of those greasy dinosaurs for a long time. But, like, I remember these gigantic balloons that you had, like, beans in them that you could sort of bang and sort of make noise. I just. A lot of funny stuff, but mainly just this. The carnival spirit of the whole thing was so disorienting and so exciting and really optimistic and futuristic. And I remember, like, when I think back on it, I was so excited to be alive and to be experiencing the future. And I think it really influenced me going into my career, which wound up being store display and event design and event planning. Because that whole idea of like, taking, like, using the environment to sort of make you feel like nothing matters, like sort of a little bit of sensory overload and the excitement of sort of changing how people feel with the environment.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Thank you so much for calling in. That was interesting. His family came from Cincinnati. Did people come from all over?

[Lynn Malozewski]

Amazing story. So people did come from all over. And there was really an emphasis on the fact that the highway system was developing in America at that moment and that you could get to New York through any mode of transportation. And many of the maps actually described exactly how you could get there. I do think also this. This feeling of inspiration, obviously, was. Was such a common feeling being there. A lot of people say in World's Fair circles that actually the 64 fair was kind of, in a way, the last fair of pure optimism. That you had this real techno positivity. You had this opportunity to really be open to anything from outer space to the deep sea to Antarctica. Everywhere had potential. And, of course, thinking about that as a purely positive force without thinking of any type of repercussion is a lot of what we're trying to think about in this discussion of the fair and kind of look at the artifacts like an alien coming to Earth might look at the artifacts of, you know, yes, there's. There's a lot of language that's put into this, but it's very immediate and present. And I think that's how the fair managed to remain so optimistic for visitors And a lot of people kind of have that in their memory as the the final residue of this event.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

We're talking about an exhibit at the Queens museum marking the 60 years since the 196465 World's Fair. It's called A Billion Dollar Dream. We'll have more with all of you and all of it after a quick break. You are listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. In studio with me is Lynn Malazzewski. She is assistant director of Archives and Collections at the Queen's Museum. We are talking about an exhibit mark 60 years since the 196465 World's Fair. It's called A Billion Dollar Dream. We're taking your calls as well. Let's talk to Elizabeth from Cold Spring Harbor. Elizabeth, you have a great story.

[Alison Stewart]

Hi.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Hi.

[Alison Stewart]

Yeah, hi, Alison. Longtime listener, first time caller. I was just driving around doing my errands and I heard your guest talking about the World's Fair. And as it happens, my dad was the very first person let into the fair. He slept there for, I think, three nights with some of his college buddies. He was attending St. Peter's College in Jersey City and he was about to get in big trouble for having cut class. But when the priests saw his picture in the paper and saw why he cut, they forgave him.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

We actually, we fact check this and we have the picture right here. Your dad was good looking, by the way.

[Lynn Malozewski]

Yeah. Oh, thank you.

[Alison Stewart]

He still is. He's turned 80 this year. He looks very good.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Thank you so much for calling in. It's interesting when you think about the World's Fair because it also, it was the 60s. It was a time for protest. And I have to imagine there were protesters at the fair.

[Lynn Malozewski]

Absolutely. So April 22nd, the opening day, was in a way, the most well covered protest at the fair. And it was a protest that was organized by the Congress of Racial Equality, known as core. And there were Brooklyn chapters, Bronx chapter, Queens chapter, that all united in a way, despite kind of label of being dissident, to try and call for a stall in. So they had been frustrated with the nonviolent protests that had been occurring in the early 60s. There had been tons of picketing done around building trades and the lack of integration around building trades that were meant to be a big part of why the fair was in New York, of course, to help with construction and jobs. They also were protesting the fact that school integration had been at a standstill and there were plans and promises that were not being followed through with so there was a larger plan to do a Stalin, which would have shut down. They were pitching up to 2,000 cars on the highways leading into the World's Fair. Obviously, a huge problem, obviously made the establishment of New York City extremely fearful. And these calls for the Stalin were actually covered across the board in news outlets in New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, many major cities in international news sources. And while the Stalin didn't end up happening, and that actually was because of a few different reasons, one of which was the travel commissioner actually making it illegal in the weeks following up to the fair to stall on a highway. Very comical. Of course, there were a few attempts at similar Stalins on subways where protesters were met with extreme police brutality. People were arrested. And what ended up happening was a picket at the World's Fair, wherein the entrances to the New York City pavilion were blocked. The Shaffer Pavilion, which had been accused of discriminatory hiring practices as well. There were protests there as well, of people climbing on the bar. Similarly, the Maryland Pavilion, which still was segregating in restaurants, and the Florida Pavilion as well, which had just undergone a slew of protests in St. Augustine that were faced with extreme police brutality as well. All of these pavilions had picketers around them. And there were over, actually 300 arrests that were made that day, including Bayard Rustin, who organized the March on Washington, James Farmer, who was at that point the chairperson of core. And even those arrests recovered. So it was a really incredible way to kind of shed light on the fact that there were things going on outside of the World's Fair as far as civil rights, that were not necessarily reflected in the optimism and the ubiquitous appeal to man, quote unquote, that many of these pavilions were seeking to address.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

We got a text that said the fair was actually a financial failure until the last 10 days. Is that true?

[Lynn Malozewski]

Indeed. And even after the last 10 days, Moses anticipated about 70 million people would come, and 51 was the final number. So ultimately, I'm sorry, New Yorkers, but Moses never paid back the $24 million. He was even warning about that as early as July 1964. And there was a lot of push for these protests to be something that the World's Fair Corporation needed to follow through with because there was so much funding from the city being put into this fair. It was not a private endeavor as much as they were pitching. It was.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Let's take another call. This is Roland calling in from Tampa. Hi, Roland. Thanks for calling, all of it.

[Alison Stewart]

Hi. How you all doing?

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Doing great.

[Lynn Malozewski]

Excellent.

[Alison Stewart]

Okay. I was the youngest of four siblings who worked in Baltimore. And we had relatives who had come to New York because of the great migration in the 40s and 50s. And we went to New York a lot. My father really took time off, but we've never been to Queens before. A place that my father was in the real estate business called a place of restrictive covenants where people like us were not really welcome. We did go to the fair. We spent four days there. I still, I've tried to recreate the dogs and waffles over and over and over again without success. And I've got grandkids, one of whom is running around the swimming pool right now having tried one of my creations. When I heard you were going to be on, it didn't work. Four year old doesn't like Belgian waffles. You're in trouble. Trouble with ice cream and strawberries. But the fair was. I was the oldest of four, so I was probably the one who appreciated the most. The 60s were a time of protest. The Vietnam War has not kicked into full swing yet in terms of American involvement. But as a black, politically active family in Baltimore, we were well aware of everything that was happening. I came to New York to law school after the New York Giants let me go. And I got to be the power broker. And I had not really understood the full impact of Robin Moses on so many things. If I read the book, I think one of the lesser known things is that he actually played a part in the demise of one of my 100 year old relic is closed. The greatest thing to ever happen to Brooklyn. That was bad. And that was the Dodgers leaving.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Well, first of all, I want to interrupt you for one second. You play. Wait, you played football?

[Alison Stewart]

I did, I did.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

What's your. Yeah, what's your name? I'm sorry, what's your name, sir? Just so we can look you up.

[Alison Stewart]

Roland. Roland Nicholson Jr. All right, thank you.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

So much for calling. We're really excited to actually look you up. Anyway, in response to Roland's call, what do you. What is on your mind?

[Lynn Malozewski]

Yeah, so similarly thrown by the Giants comment, of course. But I think it's interesting to recognize that there is a discrepancy between what was going on inside and outside of the fair and that there was an assumption in our memories, in a way, that the 1960s was all about, yes, the push of civil rights and the push of, you know, female rights and all of these, all of these opportunities for self actualization and humanity to really meet on the same page. But the world's Fair is kind of lobbed into that a little bit, and it's actually an event that was pulling more from the early 60s and also thinking about executives and the stakeholders that were making the fair right, that were putting out the advertising material, that were clearing the text that was going into the brochures and pamphlets. People were taking home. Even the thinking of the National Immigration act, which wasn't passed until December of 1965, after the world's Fair closed. So when the World's Fair opened, New York City was 90% white. And there was a way in which the variety and the diversity of the fair was really new to people. And, you know, was something that people were learning so much about. So when we think about culture and we think about the beauty of this event, people really were kind of learning and absorbing things for the first time, as opposed to kind of the digestion because of all of these different elements of spectacle, I think is something that we perhaps need to look at a little closer and is really what the exhibition is seeking to do, to really think about what types of points of culture were put forward, what types of food were put forward, what types of ancient history or opportunities for tourism were put forward, and how does that actually speak to what was going on in those nations at the time, or what was going on in New York City, even at the time?

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Let's take another call. Let's talk to Jim. Thank you so much for calling all of it. What is your memory of the 64, 65 World's Fair?

[Alison Stewart]

Well, my memory was that it was more future optimistic, shall we say, was it. Lynne Malazzewski is the curator.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Yes.

[Alison Stewart]

Yeah. I would like to ask, aside from the various exhibits, the U.S. steel. The steel globe. Yeah, it was before, really, Vietnam had kicked in. And whenever I was only 13 at the first summer, and the corps demonstrations I was not even aware of, but there was a near calamity there with a crowd crush. I don't know if anybody else had reported it. I mean, it didn't. There was like maybe 2,000 people going. It was all outdoors. And there was a fireworks display that was supposed to be going on in one direction. Darkness had settled and it went off at a right angle. And you had about 2,000 people shifting direction. And it really. Thank God there were no fences or whatever because it became crushing where you couldn't breathe. For couple of seconds, people were screaming, and then it just naturally resolved itself. But it was really one of my mem. I mean, my feet lost the ground. I remembered all the phrases, you Hear. But no, it was very. On a more positive note, the technology was future at and t they were. We had television, but it was talking about how in the future you'd have these sort of Dick Tracy type devices. You know, people remember that, you know, his very techno, you know, the wristwatch that Dick Tracy had.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Thank you so much for calling in. I want to follow up on that with the 1963 Equal Pay act, which mandated that workers be paid equally regardless of sex, race, age, disability. It coincided with the development of the 64, 65 World Fair. How much of an effort was there to assure that this act was enforced by the organizers of the fair?

[Lynn Malozewski]

We unfortunately don't really know the answer to that question. But what we can tell from the artifacts that we have at the museum and in the exhibition is that there, despite the Equal Pay act, like you mentioned, having equality for equal jobs, equal work, you can still tell that there is gendering to the types of work. Right. We have a really incredible employee booklet that talks about our gals and our guys at the Bell System Pavilion. And you can look at, you know, a photo of executives from the GM pavilion. And it is very apparent that everyone is over 55, male and white. And there is a real emphasis and celebration of pavilions wherein there was diversity. So GM had great diversity as far as kind of the back of house staff. And the Bell Systems Pavilion had diversity as far as, you know, the women that were included in the hostesses roles. But you can also see from different newspapers at the time, which some of which we have as a kind of supplement to the exhibition at the museum, that there were definitely targets for the sexes for particular races. For example, there was a ton of controversy with work integration, like I mentioned before, and there were committees set up throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan to acquire applications of black men to participate in the building trades. They claim that over 500 applications were received, but only 350 were of a qualified type. And we don't have numbers on exactly how many got in, for example. So there's a way in which it's a lot of public relations, which again, Robert Moses was very good at that. We have proof that there are committees and that there's attempts for integration being made. But it becomes clear looking at the photos that perhaps time was taking a second to catch up with the policy and what was actually moving forward as far as civil rights.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Do you have any. Is there any information on the demographics of the workforce behind the World's Fair?

[Lynn Malozewski]

Unfortunately not. As a kind of broad stroke that covers all the industries. We know that more than 10,000 people worked on the fair and worked within the fair. We know that the building unions, all 18 trades, were included to create this incredible event. And we know that there were definitely struggles. For example, there's a stat that the sheet metal workers only had four black men in the union, despite having over 150 people in that union. So there was at least though, a lot of solidarity when it came to not defying pickets and not defying strikes that were occurring either through the concrete unions, for example, or the operating engineers union, which went on strike when four people got laid off spontaneously from the World's Fair work, for example. So we do see solidarity in those moments. Among the Teamsters, there were three kind.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Of uniforms that people wore. Could you describe them for us?

[Lynn Malozewski]

Absolutely. So we have three incredible blazers that are on display in the exhibition. One is a really delicious orange greyhound kind of officer jacket. And they're all these, you know, blended polyester numbers. And we have a male greyhound operator jacket as well, which is really beautiful royal blue. It almost looks a little militaristic. It has yellow stripes on the cuffs. And lastly, we have a greyhound female jacket that's a really nice mustard yellow. And you can just kind of tell we wanted to include these to kind of give an ode to the style of the time, give a little bit of pop of color, of course, a little texture, but to also really, again, consistently show that there was a gendering that was occurring or an expectation, in a way, of the attendees of the fair of American culture, of, you know, what, what the people maybe were engaging in or what, what the community could or should have been. Based on the outlook of the organizers of the fair.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

We're talking about an exhibit at the Queen's Museum, A billion dollar dream. It marked 60 years since the 64, 65 World's Fair. Let's talk to Lorraine. Hi, Lorraine. Thank you so much for calling all of us.

[Alison Stewart]

Hi. Well, I lived in Mill Basin, Brooklyn at that time, and I had just turned 13 and there was a bus that went from that area to the World's Fair. And I just went by myself. And one of the, you know, so understand that my focus was like 13 year old's focus. So there was a Ms. Clarol provision pavilion and I went there and they had a mirror that you looked into and then different wigs would show in the mirror. How do you look as a brunette? How do you look as a blonde? How do you look with. I remember the first time I ever heard of Ash blondes. And I decided that was the color for me. And then when I. Besides that, I saw a phone booth and I was astounded. It was push button instead of rotary. And I called every single person I knew the number of to tell them that I am calling from a push button phone. Right. That, that really, that really amazed me.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

That's such a great story. Thank you so much for calling. Did you want to respond?

[Lynn Malozewski]

Incredible. So the Touchstone phone was a new invention at that time. That actually was a huge deal, huge deal at the World's Fair. And the fact that you could go into these phone booths, they were called Serpentine phone booths and they were put up by Bell Systems. They had about 17 around the fair. Incredible. And the Clairol Pavilion is one that's actually prominently featured in the exhibition because it was a pavilion that only allowed females in. Except for Father's Day. That was the one day that men could go inside. And it was for the intention that the caller mentioned you could go in and choose your hair color for us. Again, looking at the World's Fair from an alien's point of view, it becomes very clear that there is a particular type of woman and she is very fair and maximum mild, olive toned skin. It is also very clear that she very much wants blonde hair, or maybe brown hair, but probably she's blonde. Exactly. So it becomes again very clear and intriguing that there is an emphasis on a type of woman, a woman who can look beautiful and enhance her beauty, but no one has to know. It can be her little secret. So there's also an emphasis on thinking about how, in a way, the new woman that had come about in the midst of World War II, who was working, who was supporting the family, who was taking on roles that men who had gone to war, you know, needed to leave behind to defend the country and defend democracy, these women could go back to being women. They, they didn't necessarily. So simple. They didn't necessarily have to, you know, they could focus on themselves again. They could focus on beauty, they could focus on leisure, they could focus on the amplification of relationships that this beauty and leisure would accommodate. And even when we're thinking about the pursual of kind of domestic bliss that was on display as well at the fair, you see an evolution of domestic electronics. You see one of my favorite things, which is a Ronson electrical can opener. Incredible graphics because it can do everything. It can mash potatoes, it can froth milk, it can, you know, mix your hair dye. All of these things are in this beautiful little graphic of this piece of paper that you were supposed to take home and flip it over and order a Ronson can opener. So there's still an emphasis that there's a convenience and a priority of the domestic for women, despite. If you want to do it all, maybe you can, but why not just focus on these conveniences? Precisely.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

A new exhibit at the Queens Museum marks 60 years since the 6465 World Fair. My guest is Lynn Malazzewski, assistant director of Archives and Collection at the Queens Museum. She's joining us to discuss A Billion Dollar Dream, which is on view through July 13th. Listeners, we'd love to hear from you. Did you attend the World's Fair? Do you have any souvenirs or memorabilia from your visit? 2124-3396-9221-2433, WNYC. We'll have more after a quick break. This is all of it. You're listening to ALL of IT on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest in studio is Lynn Malazzewski. She's assistant director of archives and collections at the Queen's Museum. They have an exhibit up A Billion Dollar Dream. It's called marking 60 years since the 1964-65 World Series. Excuse me, World's Fair. Look at all the texts that I have. I'm just gonna read a couple. We've just gotten so many. I remember the Belgian waffles at the New York World Fair while my dad took my sister to see Barbra Streisand on Broadway in Funny Girl, A long drive to Jones beach, this one said, went many times with my parents and sisters, age 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, in matching dresses that my mom made so we wouldn't get lost. We like to think that other families took pictures of us. That was Mary Faith. This said I was 4. And little snippets continue to pop up in my dreams. At 4, I believe I was picking up the zeitgeist vibe of the Moonshot America and all the promise of that. When you think about all the futuristic exhibits, things that were shown at the World's Fair, what pops into your mind?

[Lynn Malozewski]

Lynne Tough question. The first thing truly is the picture phone. And this was mentioned in one of the callers. But it fundamentally is FaceTime. It's Zoom. It's a phone that you could call up when you enter the Bell Systems Pavilion, one of 10 other cities that also had picture phones. And very comically, for this being something we are all used to today and all very thankful for in a Multitude of ways. This was something people despised when they did the user feedback and focus groups on this.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Oh, interesting.

[Lynn Malozewski]

People were so concerned about being called when they had rollers, their hair being called when the house was a mess, and did not even want to humor having a video of them when they picked up the phone. I think also a big one that is one of my favorites is when you think of the GE Pavilion. Another Disney pavilion had the Carousel of Progress, which was all about showing you electricity from the 1890s to the 1960s and about this new electrical world that we would be living in. But another major component was actually showing nuclear fusion in a bubble that you would look at in stadium seating. There was an incredible light show that would be reflecting the power of the electrons and neutrons trading places in front of you. And it was, in a way, meant to get people used to the idea of nuclear energy, because people were still reeling from Hiroshima. People are still reeling from the fear of a hydrogen bomb. And they wanted to show you that nuclear energy can be efficient. Nuclear energy is actually another form of energy that we should think about alongside electricity that will move the population forward. So these are just two of the many, many, many things. There was incredible translation typewriters that IBM had on display that you could type something in English and it would be spit out in Russian. What you also start to see is a lot of these technologies. Despite trying to push people to think about computers as more than just calculators, they also, when we look, in hindsight, have very obvious connections to the military, to surveillance, to all of the technological fear in a way that we know very well today, comes from the simplicity of a lot of these technological innovations.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

This text says, I went to the World's Fair in Queens when I was in high school at Francis Lewis High School in Flushing. I love science, my favorite subject, and spent lots of times at the science hall. I almost fainted when one of the presentations was about childbirth, specifically on blood types and the complications when mom and baby's blood is, quote, incompatible. I have O negative blood type, and they emphasized that this blood type had the highest incidence of problems, made me weak. Otherwise, we had a wonderful time at the fair.

[Lynn Malozewski]

Oh, wow.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Let's talk to Diana. Hi, Diana. Thank you so much for calling all of it.

[Alison Stewart]

Hi. Well, I'm originally from Maryland, and my father was one of the architects who designed the Maryland Pavilion at the World's Fair. He partnered with Tater and Kelly architects, and we made this momentous trip up to New York. I come from a family of Eight children and I'm the oldest. And we all piled in this station wagon, this blue bomb we called it. And when we got to New York, my father was just gobsmacked about the bridges of New York. And we had to keep driving over all these different bridges. But the story I'm calling to tell is that there was a see through floor in the Maryland Pavilion that showed the floor of the Chesapeake Bay and it sprung a leak and my father was responsible for getting it fixed. It was sad little story but you know, we had the whole family came in, all our pride of our family and my dad being the architect and everything and the floor had a leak.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

So he saved the day though. He had to save the day. Diana, thank you so much for making that call. Let's talk to Alan from New Canaan, Connecticut. Hi Alan, thank you so much for making the time to call all of it.

[Alison Stewart]

Yeah, and thanks for taking my call. And your program is terrific. I love listening to it. After Brian.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Thank you.

[Alison Stewart]

Anyway, getting back to the World's Fair, I live within walking distance. Was going to Forest Hills High School at the time. Not exactly sure of my future. So we used to walk to the World's Fair and see all the exhibits. And the one. For some reason this has stayed with me for all these years and impressed me at the time as the. With the ability to transform the rainforest. There was some kind of exhibition showing a machine that kind of went through the rainforest, destroying the forest and creating highways through it. Now of course I would be a guest at that today, but what it did, it set me on a voyage that ultimately landed as an architect and urban designer. And that fair had a lot of influence in terms of what I did with my life.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Thank you so much for calling, Alan. We really appreciate your candor. Do you know what he's talking about?

[Lynn Malozewski]

Absolutely. So the exhibit he was speaking about is the Futurama exhibition. So this was the General Motors pavilion in the transportation area. Again, an absolutely mind blowing display. And the incredible thing about Futurama is there had been a Futurama Part 1 at the 1939 World's Fair. And the whole anticipation of the future and envisioning what the future would be was the core of it. It was a diorama that was 35,000 square feet. It was absolutely gigantic. It was a ride that was at the forefront of technology. You had a, you know, custom speaker that would give you a monologue, et cetera. So that display was anticipating what 1960 would look like. So at the 64 fair they revived it to see what 2000 would look like. And in that display, they fundamentally took different environments in the world and on Earth that would be subject to new opportunities for development. One of them was the rainforest, and that was the machine this caller was talking about that could actually mow down one mile of rainforest an hour and simultaneously pave roads. I don't have to say much about the problematics of that. And I think there again, in having this be such a memorable display, it's a moving, living, lit, cinematic experience that someone is moving through in very much the same way in your own little bubble. Learning about how this would allow for exorbitant mobility across South America and the Amazon really prevents people not thinking of indigenous people living in that place, not thinking of the importance of the rainforest in our biosphere. But a lot of these concerns about environmentalism and even landmarks preservation in New York City, for example, didn't occur until after the fair. A lot of those initiatives came about in the late 60s, early 70s. So as much as the environment was a huge part of the World's Fair, it was also something that was still, in a way, meant to be conquered, meant to be mastered by humanity, and meant to really allow humans to be more mobile and more kind of progressive in the way that their lives evolved and their cities evolved really specifically.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Let's talk to Adrian from Alphabet City. Hi, Adrian, thanks for calling, all of it.

[Alison Stewart]

Hi. I just wanted to say. Excuse. Hi.

[Lynn Malozewski]

Bless you.

[Alison Stewart]

Helicopter. We took off of the Pan Am building, which I think is the MetLife building now.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Yeah.

[Alison Stewart]

And I remember it careening on its side. The helicopter terrified me. I've had a fear of heights ever since.

[Lynn Malozewski]

Oh, my goodness.

[Alison Stewart]

And the other thing is, I worked for IBM in a part time job at the New York Times. And we read our job was to find a headline for each day. And then when you went to the fair, you put your birth date in and the headline we found came up. And our favorite fun bunch of people doing this work was McKinley Catches Crabs.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Thank you. Thank you for that, Adrienne. That went somewhere I was not expecting. This is a really interesting question. Were there any overlooked contributions at the fair that deserve more recognition today? Someone texted that in.

[Lynn Malozewski]

Mm. A very good question.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

It is.

[Lynn Malozewski]

For me. I think there's an element of the International Pavilions that I think was perhaps overlooked in a way, we think so much. Like everyone has mentioned calling in and texting in about the technology and about the fun of it all. There are nations that were included that really talked about their history that really actually addressed, in a way, the controversy. I've been thinking a lot about the fact that there was a Berlin pavilion, for example, at a very controversial time. They spoke about the difficulties of the Holocaust. They spoke about where they were at right now, being a divided former nation at that point. Also thinking about, at least on display in our exhibition, thinking about these nations, for example, like the Philippines, which was addressed as a nation of savages by a religious pavilion called the Wycliffe Bible Translators, but then had their own pavilion and was, you know, bringing themselves to the world stage after going through being a commonwealth in America, being a Spanish, you know, nation as well, and really attempting to push their independence and push their culture to an audience that maybe didn't know much about them. And oftentimes, these international pavilions were really minimized and kind of stereotyped to performance and performative gestures. So you see a lot of folklore there that was just people kind of helicoptering in for 10 minutes to watch it and then walking away from it. So I think there's a lot to be learned from the international pavilions and the ways in which these countries were really pushing to pitch their culture and think about the depth of that as opposed to kind of, I think, the surface level that a lot of people actually got from those pavilions in the moment.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Let's talk to John. John, you have 30 seconds.

[Alison Stewart]

Ah, just me.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Yeah, go for it.

[Alison Stewart]

Yeah. Okay. There is a former municipal parking lot at Horace Harding and Junction Boulevard. And it, I am convinced, was overflow parking. It has signage. These oval metal signs perfectly fit the aesthetic and the age. They're a bit rusted, a bit faded out, but they really belong, you know, in the current park. This is many blocks from Flushing Meadows, but it's a. Right now, it's boarded up as a Vornado construction site.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

But that brings me to my question. Are there relics around Queens that talk about the World's Fair?

[Lynn Malozewski]

Absolutely. So in the fair itself, we have a number of elements that were actually brought. We have the Column of Jeresh that was a relic from the Jordan Pavilion. Incredibly, that still remains. We have some original mosaics that still remain on the floor at the Passerelle, which is the entrance from the LIRR station. So, yeah, there's many things. And also, of course, the New York City building, the Queens Museum, is a relic, as is the panorama of the city of New York, our incredible model of New York City. Everyone needs to come see it immediately.

[Lynn Malazzewski]

Everybody needs to go see that. Lynn Malazzewski, she's assistant Director of Archives and Collections at the Queens Museum. We've been talking about A Billion Dollar Dream, which is on view at the Queen's Museum through July 13th. Thank you so much for joining us.

[Lynn Malozewski]

Thank you, Allison. Appreciate it.

[Alison Stewart]

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