6. World’s Fair Souvenirs from Queens Museum

Several of the institutions within the Cultural Institutions Group came into being because of New York City’s two World’s Fairs, both in 1939 and 1964. One of those institutions is the Queens Museum. Constructed as the New York City Building for the 1939 fair, the Queens Museum structure was used for the same purpose again in 1964.

The Museum’s is known for being the home of the giant Panorama of the City of New York, but inside its collections there thousands of souvenirs from both fairs. In the Museum of the City of New York exhibit, you can see a radio from 1939 with the Trylon and Perisphere and an ashtray from 1964 with the Unisphere as well as a vanity plate that notes the theme of the fair, “Peace through Understanding.”