NY museum to show World's Fair memorabilia

One Manhattan man's extensive collection of memorabilia from the storied 1939 World's Fair in Queens was for decades stashed away in filing cabinets in his home.

In the fall, many of those photographs, brochures and other treasures will be shared with the public, put on display at the New-York Historical Society.

The black-and-white images include depictions of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, trained elephants and even a "midget village." The late Paul Gillespie -- whose fascination with world's fairs began at age 12 when he visited the 1939-1940 event at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park -- amassed them over a lifetime.

"He had books and brochures -- you name it -- official photographs and people's personal photographs," said Marilyn Kushner, a New-York Historical Society curator. "They tell not just the official story of the fair, but the people's story."

Gillespie, a high school teacher who died in March at age 83, bequeathed his collection to the museum, making its trove on world's fairs 12 times larger.

Museum officials will spend the summer sorting through and organizing the contents of eight boxes of Gillespie's, focusing on memorabilia from the 1939 World's Fair. What results from their efforts should be a story told from new, more personal perspectives.

Kushner said one of her favorite photographs is a salute to a quainter, quieter moment of the fair. It's an image of a smartly dressed family whose children are chowing down on huge slices of watermelon.

"Who are they? What are they wearing? What are they doing?" Kushner ticked off some questions the image inspires. "It reminds us that it's a different world today."

The collection also includes evidence of what 1930s New York aspired for its future, such as a photo of Elektro the Robot at the Westinghouse Exhibit.

"There was this futurist view and a lot of new technology to make housewives' lives easier," said museum reference librarian Sue Kriete. "There are brochures for washing machines, things along the lines of 'the food that cooks itself' and 'the new self-timing oven.' "

Gillespie's gift additionally features "a lot of politically incorrect stuff at this fair and some surprisingly racy stuff," such as the dwarf village and scantily clad women, Kriete said.

Gillespie would have been thrilled that others will experience the fair through his treasures, said Marianne Pruner, his niece and the executor of his estate.

"He would be deliriously happy," she said. "I have no idea how he got this bug to gather all this stuff about world's fairs. They are things you just look at and think, 'Wow, that's a slice of yesterday.' "