USA > New York > New York City > New York panorama : a comprehensive view of the metropolis > Part 50
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as Close to this fount of growing social knowledge stands Barnard College women, famed for its progressive work in education for living. Keep-
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ing its student enrollment strictly around the 1,000 mark, Barnard uses | whole of New York as its working laboratory.
New College, a recent addition to Columbia, aims to turn out teach with a full background of knowledge and experience. Its curriculum € phasizes training to meet human problems rather than the acquisition facts per se. Every student is expected to have some experience in indus or on the farm, and wide travel during college years is a requirement.
Fordham University, largest Catholic institution of higher learning the United States, has more than 7,000 students in its various divisio which include a School of Law, a Graduate School, a School of Business Teachers' College and a School of Social Service.
Another Catholic institution of higher education is Manhattan Colle, founded in 1849 as the Academy of the Holy Infancy. Its present gro of buildings overlooks Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. In addition the usual college curriculum, it offers courses in engineering and busin
Cooper Union, chartered in 1859 "for the advancement of science { art," has given free instruction in general science, engineering and fine arts to more than 200,000 persons. A large majority of its stude are registered in night courses.
Scores of other institutions provide instruction to many thousands students in various specialized fields (medicine and surgery, law, theolc music, art, technology, etc.), and play their part in making New Y City the largest center of educational activities in the country.
XVI. THE WORLD'S FAIR, 1939
Perisphere and Trylon
ETURNING from the tardy Paris Exposition of Arts and Crafts in the nmer of 1937, Grover Whalen, president of the New York World's ir Corporation, was optimistic on the subject of peace. Should his pre- tion of world peace turn out to be correct-or even, perhaps, if it esn't-it is reasonably certain that on April 30, 1939, commemorating ashington's inauguration in New York City exactly 150 years earlier, e biggest and costliest of all expositions will open at Flushing Meadow rk, Queens. For the first time in its history, Greater New York will be st to the world; and as a press release of the corporation suggests, this nouncement in itself is "enough to set the world agog-for the world 11 knows New York's reputation for carrying through to spectacular suc- "
Hourly transportation capacity to the fair will be 160,000, and close to 100,000 visitors are expected to storm the entrances on the opening y. The average daily attendance will be 250,000; or 50,000,000 for the son. (Chicago's fair in 1933 attracted 22,500,000 ; 16,500,000 in 1934. ) tween $125,000,000 and $150,000,000 will have been spent on rec- nation and construction; and the horde of visitors, at the fair and in eater New York, will spend $1,000,000,000. These are, of course, esti- ites before the fact; but even the man from Missouri will not be sur- ised if the fair lasts two seasons and attracts 100,000,000 people who end $2,000,000,000. Missouri was not only the first State to pass a legis- ive measure for participation in the fair; it was also the first State to gn a formal contract for exhibit space and will expend $250,000 in de- loping the space.
Flushing Meadow Park embraces 1,2161/2 acres (about two square les) and extends from the North Shore-Flushing Bay area of Queens uthward 31/2 miles along the Flushing River Valley, with a width of a ile and a quarter in the north central section, the main exhibit area. perimposed on a map of midtown Manhattan, the fair plan would reach
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from the Central Park menagerie deep down into Greenwich Village; { the transverse Central Mall, lying approximately over Forty-Second Str would extend from Times Square to Tudor City.
In addition to the zone for governments, the main exhibit area will arranged in six sectors: Transportation, Communications, Production : Distribution, Food, Health, and Community Interests. Most of these clear groupings will have their own restaurants, theaters, concert halls dance floors, supplementing the attractions in the amusement area to south. Just as each sector will have its focal point-an exhibit in a f built pavilion revealing the nature of the entire sector-so the fair it will have a thematic center. An elaborate prismatic color scheme has b devised for the fan-shaped portion of the exhibit area. From the the center, which will be white, three ribs-the Golden, Red and Blue Aver. (the Avenue of Patriots, the Central Mall, and the Avenue of Pioneers will radiate, cutting the fan into wedge-shaped sections. On the ave around the edge of the fan-the Way of the Rainbow-buildings lights will attain the deepest tones, their hues blending into one anoi as they do in the spectrum. The official fair colors are white, orange blue.
"Building the world of tomorrow" is the bold theme of the fair. theme center, situated in the northwestern part of the grounds, will cor of the perisphere, a 200-foot steel-framed globe (comparable in size to 18-story building occupying a city block) ; and the trylon, a slender, ta ing three-sided pillar rising to 700 feet. These stark structures, desig by Harrison and Fouilhoux, will cost $1,700,000. They will be sim striking, beautiful. Officially, the trylon symbolizes the finite, the perispl the infinite.
Two escalators, the longest in America, will be capable of carry 16,000 persons an hour from the trylon to the perisphere entrance, w) is to be 65 feet from the ground. The perisphere, weighing 5,760, pounds exclusive of exhibit materials, will rest on eight columns arrar. in a circle 81 feet in diameter. The columns, 12 feet high and four thick, jacketed with glass, will be concealed by fountains, so that the bu ing will create the effect of a mammoth bubble kept afloat by jetting wa A circular pool, 325 feet in diameter, will be set eight feet below the tom of the perisphere. Inside the latter will be two revolving platfo or "magic carpets," on which visitors will ride while "seeing the sights 1 hearing the sounds of the World Tomorrow," an exhibit to be desig by Henry Dreyfuss. A bridge will join the perisphere to the trylon;
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helicline, a ramp 900 feet long, will slope gradually from the trylon to ground in a great three-quarter turn. The helicline and bridge will ord a view of the whole fair. The trylon will not be illuminated, but teries of projectors will make a revolving, vari-colored screen of the ge white globe, creating mobile marbled patterns heretofore limited to Wilfred clavilux or color organ.
The theme center, set in a plaza at the intersection of the north-south menade and the $60,000,000 Central Mall, will face eastward across expanse of mirroring pools and lagoons, waterfalls and fountains, ons and "aqualons," to the commanding Federal area at the far end the Mall, where nine closely related structures in semi-classic style will der on a large Court of Peace and a large oval Lagoon of the Nations. e Government has appropriated $3,000,000 for this area and appointed ward L. Cheney as architect. The dominating Federal building will bolize the three branches of our government, with a central or executive tion flanked by a Tower of Judiciary and a Tower of Legislature; addi- nal symbolism is contained in the 13 pillars of the central section. ilptures, murals and exhibits will illustrate the Government's role in promotion and protection of individual and collective security. Re- ving murals, 23 feet high, will be a notable feature of each of 12 hibits. The murals and sculptures will be executed by winners of a ional contest.
Two of the eight lesser structures will flank the Federal building, four ll adjoin the Court of Peace, and two will be situated on the eastern ore of the lagoon. These buildings will form the Hall of Nations, in ich all foreign governments participating in the fair will be given ex- it space. In addition many foreign countries will erect pavilions of ir own in an allotted space north and south of the Hall of Nations. ince and Belgium, however, have choice sites on the western side of the ;oon. The next choicest positions would seem to be those of Great itain and the Soviet Union. The cost of the exhibits and buildings of eign countries is expected to total more than $25,000,000.
Between the lagoon and the theme center, the mall will be dominated a figure of George Washington, one of the largest statues ever fash- ied. Its height and bulk are intended to symbolize both the grandeur of ashington's character and the growth of the Washington tradition
fo s a ough the years. The model for this figure portrays Washington in gilian clothes, dressed for the inauguration. In his left hand he holds a - - ked hat; his right hand rests gently on the hilt of his sword; a long
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cape falls to his feet. The model creates an effect of great resolution, digi and kindliness. This figure is the work of James Earle Fraser.
East of the 65-foot statue of Washington, in a square paved in rb white and blue, there will be a sculptural group by Leo Friedlander: for tall figures representing freedom of the press, religion, assembly aifc speech. The calm postures of the four figures are intended to express sense of security and peace fostered by the American Constitution.
A group of statues by Paul Manship, including the largest sundial e devised, will be placed in front of the colossal Washington. Branches the Tree of Life will support the sundial; under its branches, the The Fates carry on their immemorial business. The Future, holding her dist passes the thread of life to the Present; she in turn moves it along to Past, where it is snipped off. A fountain group with II jets, suggesting passage of time, will flow away from the sundial-which symbolizes ti in the abstract-toward a second Manship group in a blue-and-white goon. This represents the moods of time. Four statues 15 feet in height be surrounded by misty fountains resembling clouds. The first figu Morning, is an awakening woman. Day is embodied as a charioteer cha ing across the clouds, the sun in his hands. Evening is a woman, se recumbent, loosely wrapped in the veil of darkness, and Night a prosti female figure surrounded by stars, her head cradled in the moon bene two outstretched male figures representing the reaches of space.
Thus the father of his country, with 150 years of democratic governm behind him, will turn his confident gaze on the world of tomorrow, ref. sented by the unorthodox trylon and perisphere. Moreover, he will be § ing straight at the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. The moral tended is that the four constitutional guarantees of liberty, keys to country's past progress, are the keys also to American progress in the ture.
Dozens of historical murals and reliefs will supplement and harmor with the main sculptural groups. For example, on the facades of the bu ings bordering "Washington Square," colonial scenes will be depict Several free-standing relief groups will face the theme center at the w ern end of the mall. Three sculptures by George H. Snowden will she primitive man learning to employ his mind, learning to control nati and learning to conquer evil. A group by Edmund Amateis will exemp stories from American folk-lore, with Paul Bunyan, Strap Buckner aa Johnny Appleseed among the characters.
The colorful Central Mall, bordered by some 25 of the fair's m
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iguposing buildings and studded with numerous trees and shrubs, will un- abtedly be the most elaborate esplanade in the history of expositions. i ne mall was planned under the direction of the fair's Board of Design, fanposed of Stephen F. Voorhees (chairman), Walter Dorwin Teague, ahmond H. Shreve, Robert D. Kohn, Jay Downer, William A. Delano ss 1 Gilmore D. Clarke. The architects are William and Geoffrey Platt.
At the opposite end of the mall-axis from the government sector, and fancing it in magnitude, will be the Transportation sector, with the es ansportation building-between the two Corona gates-in line with Th: Federal building on the Flushing side of the exhibit area. But between ista: 10 g Transportation sector and the theme center lies the New York City icture, a $1,200,000 permanent house of glass. In the Transportation tor will be major buildings devoted to automotive, rail, air and marine tinsportation, as well as the buildings of the Firestone and Goodyear tebber companies. The General Motors Corporation and the Ford Motor tympany buildings will face each other across the mall-axis. The former gus contracted for the largest plot taken by any single exhibitor, paying haj6,009.15 for 298,719 square feet. The feature exhibit of the Ford build- sen, will be a "Road of Tomorrow," an elevated highway half a mile long, tring upon a series of spiral ramps and finally circling the top of the nellin part of the building.
Twenty-six eastern railroads have contributed to a $3,000,000 fund for mbuilding and exhibits. These railroads will have a larger total of space epin any other group of exhibitors at the fair, and theirs will be the ggest building. Spur tracks will be extended directly to this building, and There will be 3,600 feet of outside track for rolling-stock exhibits. The .in entrance to the elongated S-shaped edifice will carry out the design el a roundhouse. A featured exhibit will be a working model railroad, nplete in every detail.
on Water will be an integral part of the design for the Hall of Marine ulansportation in the southern part of the sector. Twin prows, 30 feet cigher than the nose of the Normandie, will rise from a moat and tower we feet above the roof of the building. A semi-circular wing of the struc- høre will partially enclose a basin in which full-size yachts, cruisers, speed- tuats and other small craft will be displayed. The entrance ramp to the plilding will simulate a gang plank; ship railings will border the water; ad extending along one wall and out over the basin will be two decks, e above the other.
ml The Aviation building and the focal exhibit in the Transportation
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building are bound to attract huge crowds. In the former the activit of a great airport will be presented, and visitors will be privileged to en the exhibit planes and handle the gadgets. The building will be one the oddest in the entire fair, embodying architect William Lescaze's id of "flight in space." A Y-shaped entrance leads to, but does not ma contact with, a huge semi-circular rear wall that suggests a wind mach: or the back of a bandstand. Entering the building, the visitor will h the droning of many motors and his eyes will be drawn to the cup-l wall at the far end where a transport plane, propellers whirling and lig flashing, will be "flying" against a background of midday clouds, a sun or a moon-lit night. The focal exhibit for the Transportation sector, signed by Raymond Loewy, will include streamlined futuristic models ships, trains, airplanes, etc. An animated presentation of transportati from the dawn of history to 1939, shown on a map-screen to the accom niment of sound effects, will be climaxed by a sensational portrayal o rocket ship taking off from a rocket port for an interplanetary trip.
Richard Kent, writing in Pencil Points, an architectural publicati indicates that the approximate symmetry of the fair's main exhibit a was largely an improvisation; it could be planned only after the Bo: of Design had determined the best foundation site for the theme cer. and-the problem of transportation being a vital one-the most accessi entrances to the grounds. Lewis Mumford suggests that the ideal plan an exposition must give the visitor an immediate understanding of the position as a whole. As logical designs that successfully oriented visitor, he cites the Paris Exposition of 1867, whose concentric grou enabled the visitor to walk around the perimeter or to cut in toward center at convenient points, and the Chicago World's Columbian Expo tion of 1893, in which the buildings were grouped about the main wat course. In the 1939 New York fair, the height and distinction of the the buildings, together with the zone grouping of related exhibits, will ena the visitor to check his general whereabouts rather readily. The plan is part logical and formal; but it escapes the rigidly geometric, leaving ro for that element of the informal, the unexpected, the casual which is as ciated with good landscape gardening.
The fair's second main avenue or axis leads southward from the the center through the Plaza of Light, which is bordered by the Gene Electric, Consolidated Edison, Edison Electric Institute, and United Sta Steel buildings; then over the Empire State Bridge across the Hor Harding Boulevard to the New York State building and marine amf
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eater. These latter structures will cost the state $1,700,000. The nphitheater, seating 10,000, will remain after the fair is over; on its rge island stage, concerts, operas, pageants and aquatic displays will be esented. A Hollywood building, a children's miniature world's fair, and Music building, together with the State building and amphitheater, will ake up the "modern" zone, a transition section between the "ultra- odern" architecture of the exhibit area and the period, national, and otic designs of the various villages to the south. In the music auditorium, ating 2,500, a festival of music, unprecedented in scope, will be presented famous artists from all over the world. The Children's World will cupy a five-acre plot, with indoor and outdoor playing facilities, exhibits children's furniture, clothing and playthings, two theaters (one for ing actors and another for puppets), book, doll and toy houses, and her features.
The directors of New York's fair have decided to ban the use of the ord "midway," though as yet no substitute term has been coined. Midway no midway, the fair will have an amusement district on the eastern side Meadow Lake capable of entertaining 250,000 people at one time. The ain thoroughfare in this 280-acre area will be a two-mile loop; and no oubt the 500 concessions will be responsible for a sizable portion of the ir's estimated gate receipts of $25,000,000, at 50 cents a visitor.
Nightly spectacles of color, music, fireworks, flame and water will be esented in Meadow Lake and in the Lagoon of Nations. Installation of e equipment is to cost $700,000. The display to be presented over Meadow ake is characterized as "the nearest approach to chaos that man can ntrive for purposes of sheer entertainment," while the Central Mall ectacle is described as "a Niagara plus a Vesuvius."
The plan of the loop calls for 13 or more villages, and each concession ust conform in design and atmosphere to its particular village. "Little ld New York" is one village contemplated. If this village includes a eater, it will be the old Park Theatre; if a café, the concessionaire will required to reproduce Steve Brodie's saloon. Every employee will be pected to dress appropriately, and no detail of architecture will be per- itted which doesn't carry out the approved theme. Other villages planned clude Little Harlem, with its Cotton Club and Savoy Ballroom; a winter Ilage featuring a musical comedy on ice; and a Montmartre incorporating Moulin Rouge or Bal Tabarin and perhaps a theater showing Grand uignol productions. There will be all sorts of rides and spectacles in the nusement area, and an effort is being made to provide a large number
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of novel devices. Details of inventions, obviously, will not be disclose until patents have been granted and the opening date of the fair is ne at hand. The two major attractions-"Little Old New York," and a hu, night club seating 4,000 to 5,000 people-will be placed at the lower er of the loop to serve as magnets. The plan for the loop was developed 1 Albert Johnson, who designed the sets for such elaborate theatrical pr ductions as Jumbo and The Great Waltz.
The western side of Meadow Lake will be reserved for an army encam ment and for quiet forms of entertainment, with many rest oases, flow gardens and picnic grounds. Another lake to the south, Willow Lake, w. feature tree plantations and parking space. To keep these artificial lak fresh and prevent erosion of their shores, a tide gate and dam costit $586,365 will be constructed on the Flushing River.
The northeastern corner of the main exhibit area will be occupied !! the Town of Tomorrow, pleasantly spaced over ten acres and comprisi some 35 houses and apartment groups, a nursery, playground and shof This model community is intended to show the average man how he m live under "the more nearly perfect flowering of democracy" in the Ame can small town of the future. Adjoining the Town of Tomorrow will an Arts building, exhibiting hundreds of works by living American artis
In the southeastern corner of the main exhibit area, at the opposite er of the Rainbow Way from the Town of Tomorrow, will be the Court States, an II-acre plot for the exhibits of the various states and territori Freshly approaching the problem of grouping state exhibits, the buildin will be designed in three architectural styles-Georgian, French, Spani -- representing the three cultures that have influenced, respectively, t Atlantic seaboard states, the Mississippi Valley states, and the sout western states. Allocation in this area will not be compulsory, howev and some states will erect individual buildings elsewhere on the fa grounds.
The $740,000 Administration building, standing just outside what w be the northwest entrance to the fair, was completed August 13, 19: two days ahead of schedule. Designed by several architects in collabo: tion-Harvey Stevenson, Eastman Studds, John A. Thomson, Gerald Holmes, Edgar I. Williams, and Kimball & Husted-the two-storied stri ture resembles a high school building of advanced design. Its special ch: acter, however, is indicated by the octagonal entrance and pre-fair exhi! hall, which juts out from and towers above the main mass. The façade abc the entrance doors is decorated with a high-relief panel carved by Alb
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eward, which displays a semi-draped woman rising above the skyscrapers Manhattan and lifting as she rises a veil which screens the world of morrow. The figure is executed in pure white plaster ; the veil and the sky- apers are dull gold. The other walls of the façade are relieved by vertical ting surmounted by rows of five stars, the latter "forecasting a five- r fair." In a handle-like wing to the right are housed the executive ices ; the main H-shaped wing to the left contains the other offices and orkrooms. The domed ceiling of the octagonal hall is supported by eight lumns painted an ultramarine blue; the ceiling itself is ringed with sev- El shades of blue, and the walls are light gray. There are no windows; umination is provided by overhead disc lights. A bridge leads from the oby on the second floor to the fair grounds proper.
The completion of the Administration building left some 300 more ed ildings to be constructed. During the three-day preview held at the fair e one year before the scheduled opening, the thousands of visitors saw ho buildings in steel and framing or already enclosed, and many more in e preliminary stages of construction. Among the 17 were the Textile, me elter, Communications, Business Administration, Food, Medicine and iblic Health, Mines and Metallurgy, and New York City buildings. Two tis them were painted to afford the guests a foretaste of the "color cock- el" that will characterize the completed exposition. The walls of the rt ori din isiness Administration building are in white and two shades of "warm" llow, with accents of vermilion and grey-blue; its interior court is deep d, violet, white, gold and black. The façade of the Hall of Communi- tions is in white and two shades of "cool" yellow, with accents of ver- ilion and blue-green. The twin pylons guarding the entrance are in d-orange, blue and white. The fair's color scheme, unique in extent and ev boldness, has been developed by Julian E. Garnsey. A total of 499 care- illy graduated colors is available to the fair architects. White, however, ill be used freely "to wash the fair-goer's eyes out and let him start "fer again."
The Board of Design, in order to enlist new architectural talent for the ir structures, held an open competition in 1936. More than 360 designs or a free-style exposition building were anonymously submitted. Of the imerous prize winners, a majority have been employed by the fair. First tize winner was George Lyman Paine, Jr., and the second prize went to eter Copeland. The former has designed the Production and Distribution building and the latter the Electrical Production building. The joint de- gners of the theme center, Wallace K. Harrison and J. André Fouilhoux,
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