Ford Pavilion
I'm lucky enough to have an extensive collection of old photographs from both of my grandmothers. My Nana (Marie) was born in 1916, and my Grandma (Sophie) was born in 1920, so the photos that I have go back quite some time. The oldest two I would say I have are of my great-grandmother in 1912 and my grandma at age 3 in 1923. Naturally, with such a large collection of vintage photos, you're bound to stumble across snaps from iconic cultural and historic events. For me, this includes many WW2 photos of my grandfathers and great uncles (as well as every single letter that my Nana and Grandpa wrote to each other during the war- she saved them all, and I now have them), and any random trips that they went on. My Nana actually had a real passion for photography, I remember once I found a box in her house that was filled with just about every major camera model from the 1950s to modern day. She had everything, and when I asked her why she had so many she simply said, "I like them". My Nana would photograph a lot of random things, and I know what my father's (Nana is my father's mother) childhood home looked like in great detail because Nana would photograph all the furniture when no one was home. She loved documentary type photos while my grandma mainly took pictures of family and friends, etc. While going through some of Nana's old photos recently I came across a set that was clearly something very grand and important, but I had no idea what it was because unfortunately, my Nana never labeled anything. I think I have maybe 3 photos of hers that actually have a date written on the back, and that's it. So anyway, I decided I would try to investigate the building in the picture by Google-ing as many details about it as I could find relevant. It turns out that the photos I have recently found are from the 1939/1940 New York World's Fair!
From what I have read and researched, the theme of the 1940 fair was "the Future", and many of the exhibits had very Metropolis-like art deco decorations on the exterior buildings. I love the photo above of the Ford pavilion with the robotic Apollo or whichever god it's supposed to be, it's such weird 1940's nonsense! Apparently one of the areas at the fair was a transportation area where many of the major car manufacturers had showrooms for new models.
General Motors Pavilion (I think the man posing is one of my great uncles bc I have a lot of pictures of him, but because of the no labeling I can't be sure. He's related to me somehow! lol)
The photo below shows a huge mural on the wall of an exhibition hall that matches the same futuristic look as the Ford man. I love this type of artwork!
Entrance showing the tram car that took visitors around
British Pavilion
Trylon and Perisphere
The Perisphere (round building) was apparently home to a "World of Tomorrow" exhibit!
USSR Pavilion
My Nana, the photographer
I plan to do more "Vintage Vault" posts like this, I think next will be my grandpa's photos from Japan during WW2 when he stayed in a really nice hotel! Oh, and my Paris post is coming soon, I haven't forgotten!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment