NEW YORK FAIR

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 112, 7 November 1935, Page 27

NEW YORK FAIR

IN FOUR YEARS' TIME

GREAT PLANS BEING LAID

ENORMOUS COST

New York, city of. superlatives, now turns its gigantic resources to preparation for a world's fair to open here in 1939. Announcement of preliminary plans at first came as a shock to a metropolis that has nearly 200,000 families on the dole and 150,000 persons on work relief. But a storm of approval followed the initial gasp of surprise, writes Victor Bernstein in the "New York Times." City officials and business leaders see in the plan not only a bold advertising stroke of international scope but a long step towards the solution of the •local unemployment problem. Forty million dollars' worth of steel, brick, mortar, and labour will be poured over JOO3 acres of rolling meadows and marshes in Queens to build the fair. A payroll of 75,000 persons or more will be necessary to administer it. And nearly 40,000,000 visitors (if the recent Chicago Fair is any gauge) will prime local trade channels by spending millions of dollars. The fair, which will commemorate the 150 th anniversary of Washington's inaugural in New York as first President of the United States, is likely to alter New York's normal function in the world of travel. Already plans are being made to. make the Flushing River, which runs through the fair [site, navigable for boats with draught up to eighteen feet in order to provide easy transportation by water for visitors arriving at terminals other than those of the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads. MECCA FOR TOURISTS. For the first time in recent history the city will bi> more important as a Mecca for tourists than as a point of departure. All roads will lead eastward during the spring and summer of 1939 and 1940—the fair will be held in, two sessions—just as all roads led to the Midwest during the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago during 1933-34. But all this still lies a long way ahead. The modern world's fair, though it be, indeed, a magic city built of science's most sensational wonders, does not rise like magic out of the earth. It is an enormous undertaking, necessitating the solution of financial, engineering, and administrative problems of broad proportions. The fact that plans for New York's fair have been launched three and a half years before the date set for opening is eloquent of the magnitude of the task. Four or five years' work preceded the opening of most of the great recent fairs .at San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Chicago. In the latter city the administration building was erected and the business of the fair was being carried on at top speed two and a half years before the first visitor pushed through the turnstiles at the fair grounds. In all likelihood, an administration building will be the first structure to^ be erected on the site of New York's great experiment. Because of its quasi-official nature, an international fair presents a unique financial problem. Admittedly, the fair will benefit, directly or indirectly, most of the city's 7,000,000 inhabitants. But taxpayers, already burdened heavily with costs of municipal government, would not care to dig into their pockets for 40,000,000 dollars (£8,000,000) to create a spectacle for the world whose benefit to themselves must of necessity be general and indeterminate. BEARING THE COST. In most of the fairs held in the United States, local and Federal taxpayers did bear the greater part of the cost. The World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 was financed by 5,000,000 dollars of city money and 2,500,000 dollars of Federal funds. The Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis, held in 1904, obtained's,ooo,ooo dollars from the city, an equal amount Crom Washington, and an additional 4.500,000-dollar loan from the Federal Government. San Francisco's Panama Pacific Exposition in 1915 was supported by 5,000,000 dollars of city money, an equal amount of State money, and an additional 500,000 dollars raised by various California counties. Sponsors of the Chicago fair in 1933 broke almost completely with the subsidy precedent established by earlier fair managements. Forming a corporation, they charged 1000 dollars for a founder's membership and 50 dollars from sustaining members, Then they collected five dollars each from more than 100,000 members of an organisation known as the World's Fair Legion. Thus popular subscription formed a nucleus fund and bound hundreds of thousands of citizens to an'intimate interest in the welfare of the fair. JsjThe Chicago sponsors raised 10,000,000 dollars by the sale of gold notes that were guaranteed by the leading business men of the city and that represented a lien of 40 per cent, against the gate receipts of the fair. Events proved the wisdom of the investors. They were paid back in full shortly after the fair closed down on November 1, last year,' and last March the fair corporation had more than 700.000 dollars still on its books that could be used for ■ demolition work. Sponsors of the New York fair, who include a score of civic leaders, were recently drawing up incorporation papers, and a financial scheme is likely to be forthcoming shortly. SIMILAR COURSE. The engineering problem attendant upon the construction of a world's fair involves the building of an ornate city of large structures on unI improved ground. Many fair buildings are of only temporary nature, and to tear down existing buildings for ephemeral construction would not bo economic. Furthermore, the fair must not be allowed to handicap the routine business of the city, and unimproved land —a park, a meadow, a marsh —is the only answer. In many respects preparations for the fair to be held in Queens ofter a striking analogy to those which preceded the Chicago event. Land must I be filled in and landscaped along the i fair site fronting on Flushing Bay. I just as similar operations had to be i carried on along the shorefront of Lake Michigan. So an engineering organisation must be built to design and execute the exposition city. From water, sewage, and power lines beneath the earth to the topmost tower of the tallest building the fair, when completed, will be brand new. A general scheme of architecture must be decided upon, streets must be laid out, the groat exhibit buildings allocated with an eye to beauty and convenience. There may be days when nearly 1,000.000 persons will be thronging their way through the grounds, creating a traffic problem not only for the fair itself but for miles of highways and railroads converging upon the site. All these problems must be blue-printed and solved long before the glittering metropolis is thrown open to the public. INTERNATIONAL ASPECT. i While construction is under way i administrators must be prepared to

handle thousands of exhibitors' applications which will pour in from all over the globe. It is not unlikely that "rental" offices will be established in many foreign capitals. If precedent is . followed, President Roosevelt will send out an official invitation to the nations of the world to participate in the fair. Each Government will want part of a building, or perhaps a plot of ground to itself, for its exhibit. The fair will be more international than Rockefeller Centre and will cost half again as much. Administrators must work hand in hand with architects to lay down a general plan for the exhibits. The general manager of the fair will noed assistants to take charge of various phases of administration work. The classification question is profoundly important. A simple shift in planning can place emphasis on art, industry, or c immerce, or can determine whether the exposition is to be based on geographic or occupational considerations or a mixture of both. The whole flavour of New York's fair will be determined when this question is decided. And while construction and administration work progresses, a publicity department—the mouthpiece of the fair—must be organised to tell the world what is going on. In the last analysis it is the public that will make or break the fair, and it will be the job of the publicity and advertising experts to maintain world interest in this world event. And it will be the job of these experts, too, to plan for the fanfare of the opening day. Chicago, disdaining the traditional Presidential button-pushing for the launching of its fair, harnessed instead a beam from the star Arcturus. One can be sure that New York will think up a new wrinkle.