Brendan, my son, and the Unisphere

My first trip to New York was in 1964, when I was 10 years old, to see the World’s Fair. I traveled from Virginia with my father in a tiny English Ford, and we camped in a state park on Long Island to save money, over an hour away from the city. We spent a couple of days at the World’s Fair, and one day visiting sites in the city like the Empire State Building. The fair made a big impression on me, especially the auto company pavillions, which presented the future as a gleamingly clean environment of high rises, green spaces, and freeways filled with swiftly moving vehicles. The fair was to a great extent a creation of Robert Moses whose efforts to reshape New York with high rises, green spaces, and freeways, is still evident today, albeit with mixed results.

The New York City Panorama, the Queen’s Museum

There are several Robert Moses exhibits on display around New York right now–one at the Queen’s Museum opposite the Unisphere, which was the centerpiece of the World’s Fair. I had hoped to see the exhibit, but my family threesome left a little late from Manhattan, so in the remaining hour before closing time we settled on seeing the newly reopened New York City Panorama. This, like the Unisphere, is a remnant of the World’s Fair and Robert Moses’ vision of New York color-coded to highlight his achievments. In 1964, one rode above the meticulously detailed scale model of the city in a mock helicopter. Today, a ramp leads visitors around the model allowing one to linger and watch a recently updated multimedia presentation. The city depicted by the model is frozen in the early 1990s, and the Twin Towers reign over Lower Manhattan. I was captivated by the Panorama back in 1964, and it’s still an awesome sight today.