SURVIVING into the 1990s, but not quite the 2000s, was a relic not of the ’64-’65 Fair but its 1939-1940 predecessor. The Billy Rose Aquacade, or more properly, the NY State Gertrude Ederle Marine Amphitheatre, featured 10,000 seats looking down on a pool big enough to fit 1,750 tons of water. And what was in the pool? Synchronized swimming bathing beauties. Bikinis were still over a decade in the future, but Rose, the aquatic Busby Berkeley, put on quite a show nonetheless. And there was certainly something for the ladies as well, as Rose’s “Aquadonises” included future Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller and future Flash Gordon and future potbelly-masking belt salesman Buster Crabbe.
The Amphitheatre soldiered on for some decades after the Fair, but succumbed to deferred maintenance and was finally pickaxed to oblivion in the mid-1990s. Ten years after the final disappearance of the Aquacade, a pedestrian pavilion slowly took shape along Flushing Meadows’ Meadow Lake. The Aquacade was remembered by a pavement mosaic at the park’s main entrance on the walkway leading to the IRT subway; those mosaics were recently removed by Parks.
I was staggering through Flushing Meadows recently, hoping to get all the way to Forest Hills, but the “the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself” as The Newtown Pentacleer puts it, was beating down; that, and a sore back, forced me to turn back once I reached this spot at the north end of Meadow Lake.
Here you will find the park’s lone snack bar, other than food trucks, the Gertrude Ederle Terrace Cafe. Ederle (1905-2003) was a champion swimmer and two-time bronze medalist at the 1924 Olympics in Paris. After an unsuccessful attempt in 1925 to swim the English Channel, Ederle accepted a sponsorship from the Chicago Tribune to try again, and successfully completed the swim despite stormy weather and other impediments; she set a record time, better than the five men who had already done it. However, after accepting sponsorship she was thence barred from participating in the Olympics again. She then worked in showbiz, swimming exhibitions for vaudeville. After a severe 1933 injury, she recovered sufficiently to appear at the Aquacade for the 1939-1940 World’s Fair. Swimming is one of the most efficient exercises imaginable, and Ederle lived a long life, passing away at age 98.
As for myself, I’m limited to walking till my back issues can be therapied. Ederle Terrace offers hot food and sandwiches, but on this 90-degree day, I opted for a lime Frozfruit, a treat I haven’t had in years.
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8/14/25
6 comments
For more on the history of the late Aquacade, I wrote this detailed essay.
Bikinis were not quite a decade in the future at the time of the first World’s Fair. Automotive engineer turned clothing designer Louis Reard introduced the first bikini at a Paris swimming pool on July 5, 1946. He named it after Bikini Atoll, site of a highly publicized US atomic bomb test less than a week earlier. Urban legend says this was because the bomb blew out the middle of the island while leaving the ends intact. In fact, Louis Reard just liked the sound of the name, and in any event the bomb didn’t alter the island’s geography in that way.
Fun fact: the model for the first bikini, Micheline Bernardini, is still around at almost 100.
What doesnt get mentioned much about that fair is that there was
also a carny side to it with girly shows,freaks,fetuses in jars of
formaldehyde(in the interest of scientific knowlege)Bobo,the boy with two….
That snack bar and the structure above it remind me of the cover art of a late 60s/early 70s scifi paperback about a prison planet in the 28th century or something far distant like that. It was a blockhouse/watchtower bristling with guns. I never read that book but want to now. Wish I could remember the author/title.
Gertrude Ederle resided at 132-37 41st Road in Flushing for over 50 years.
The home no longer exists, replaced by a hideous apartment/retail complex.
In the late 1950’s, before construction of the 1964-65 Fair began, shows were still produced at the Aquacade. I remember being there with my parents, who were entertaining relatives from out-of-town. When it (then the Ederle Ampitheater) was demolished, bricks from it were given to folks who donated to the improvements of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. I still have my brick with a Certificate of Authenticity.