A pair of unusually-shaped structures along the pedestrian walkway on Flushing Bay north of Citifield, now used mainly as relief from the hot sun in sumer, were originally designed for the World’s Fair Marina in 1964 and later found use as Coast Guard stations.
Paul Lukas has the whole story.
8 comments
That is an incredibly fascinating story. The authors hit on a particularly true problem with history – especially in today’s ‘disposable’ age. Things of a certain age fall into a category of ‘not new enough to be attention-grabbing but not old enough to be revered.’ Those of us who are ocean liner buffs know this very well. Train/trolley buffs know the feeling as well. We lost so many grand ocean liners and streamliners because they were too old to be useful but not yet appreciated in their historical context. We continue to fight for what’s left in ships like the SS United States as it lays rusting in a Philadelphia backwater.
The authors deserve a huge round of applause for all the work they did to uncover the history of these unique structures. I know I’m enjoying them even more now that I know the story behind them. Hopefully that will be true for a lot of other people as they read about these places and things on FNY. Keep up the great work.
I couldn’t agree more with Michael, but then again that is why we are all drawn to this fantastic web site. I remember those two structures well. One was Johnson Outboard Motors the other: Evinrude. They were enclosed in glass are were basically mini showrooms. I pass them everyday and coincidentally (yesterday), wondered how why they endured. Great job as usual FNY
Dave D. (Lynbrook)
I thought this might be useful,
http://www.nywf64.com/wfmar01.shtml
Dave D (Lynbrook)
As a regular at Shea and Citifield, I have driven buy these hundreds of times and knew that they had to be from the ’64 World’s Fair. But I had no idea of the complete history of the structures. Paul Lukas’ article is just amazing.
The world’s fair was memorable for me. I was quite young but my parents took my brother and there often visiting different pavilions each time. This ensured I would have a memory of the fair which I certainly do. Also we kept fair memorabilia in the house for decades after the fair ended, and also had home movies.
So, now for the $64,000 question: What happened to the third structure?
A replica of the HMS Bounty (made for the movie) was docked there and on exhibit.
I’m 54 years old and don’t remember much about my childhood. I do remember those structures and do remember that each structure had one large AT&T telephone in the center. Why I remember this I don’t know,but I do. They were very large phone booths
The third structure has been located. It’s a summer home in an undisclosed location in upstate NY.
You can death for candela, or is it ca Della here at this worlds fair forum: worldsfaircomunnity.org