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When Flushing Welcomed the World

By Rhoda Amon | Staff Writer

Flushing Meadows Corona Park is full of ghosts for those who remember two World's Fairs there.

There's not much left from the 1939 ``World of Tomorrow''' where children on field trips saw television for the first time and marveled over General Motors' Futurama, a city of the future. All that's left is the New York City Building, now the Queens Museum of Art, the ice rink and two Art Deco flagpoles. The museum contains an updated Panorama of New York, the world's largest scale model built for the '64 Fair. It shows the city's seven bridges, highways, subways, the Empire State Building (15 inches high), the Queens airports with tiny planes overhead and thousands of tiny homes. There's also an exhibit of World's Fair memorabilia, with menus from 1939's fancy restaurants where dinner was $1.50, a cocktail 35 cents. The '39 amphitheater and Aquacade pool have been demolished and the old boathouse is slated to be replaced by a restaurant.

There's more left from the '64 fair. John Feeley, a World's Fair buff who was 4 when the fair opened and now edits ``The Sphere,'' a park newsletter, points out the Hall of Science that was the science pavilion; the Terrace On The Park restaurant that was a heliport, the Unisphere that's now a city landmark, and assorted sculpture: the ``Whispering Column of Jerash'' from an ancient Roman temple; ``Freedom of the Human Spirit,'' a figurative bronze; a sculpture called ``Rocket Thrower,'' and an inscribed marble bench commemorating the Vatican Pavilion.

The tallest structure, the 350-foot New York State Pavilion, figured in the film ``Men in Black.'' (The ``flying saucers'' atop the towers were said to have been placed there by aliens.) Its Theaterama became the Queens Theatre in the Park. But the fate of the Philip Johnson-designed pavilion is in doubt as the city tries to find a use for it.

A round cement time capsule from both fairs is slated for a longer life. It's to be opened in 5,000 years. The fairs transformed what was the Corona ash dump, described in F. Scott Fitzgerald's ``The Great Gatsby'' in 1925 as the ``Valley of Ashes.'' The park and two fair byproducts -- Shea Stadium and the Flushing Bay Marina -- remain as monuments to New York's master builder, Robert Moses. But the era of World's Fairs has passed. Technology today triggers more fear of loss of jobs than hope for a brighter tomorrow.

The children splashing in the Unisphere fountain will probably never see a world's fair, but for the moment they're enjoying what's left of it.