While the Unisphere and open-air New York pavilion stand in Flushing-Meadows Corona Park as reminders of the 1964-65 World's Fair, not much remains of the first world's fair held in the park in 1939. Perhaps that's because it was a financial failure and caused the Fair Corporation to go bankrupt, but it was still a landmark event and the first fair to be based entirely on the future. Starting Wednesday, December 5, visitors to the Museum of the City of New York will be able to revisit the fair in a new exhibition titled "Designing Tomorrow: America's World's Fairs of the 1930s" that features all six fairs held during the 1930s.
The show's set-up will be reminiscent of the fairs, with custom built pavilions housing the furniture, appliances, and exhibits that were shown. Original drawings, photographs, and vintage footage will be displayed, along with re-creations of things like Westinghouse's talking robot and the "modernized" toaster. Never-before-exhibited colored Kodachrome slides will be shown, as well as more than 200 architectural design drawings for the pavilions and fair grounds, including the fair center pieces, the Trylon and Perisphere. The exhibit will be on display through March 31, 2013.
· Designing Tomorrow: America's World's Fairs of the 1930s [MCNY]