Remember when they brought the Pietà to the NY World's Fair?

The 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair introduced us to the World of Tomorrow, the world we live in today. There never was nor ever could be a better fair, and that is the memory I have carried since that family road-trip vacation from Chicago brought us to the Queens fairgrounds in 1964. Though I do not remember all of the details — I was seven years old at the time — what remains in my heart is a sense of wonder and happiness.

It was for me, as it was for a generation of young baby boomers, my introduction to the Pietà, held as one of the greatest works in Western art. Though the 1964–1965 fair is best remembered today for its iconic Unisphere, it also marked the first and only time that the Pietà was allowed to leave St. Peter’s Basilica, and this singular moment helped make the Vatican pavilion the second-most visited pavilion at the fair, after General Motors.

The awe and reverence surrounding the sculpture impressed upon my young mind the weight of the moment. Michelangelo’s depiction of Mary’s sorrow and pain at the death of her son has resonated through the centuries as the universal expression of a mother’s deep, suffering love for her child.

Only in retrospect do I now understand the magnitude of what it meant to transport the Pietà to America. It would be comparable to shipping, for example, the Statue of Liberty to Rome. But if that were ever to happen, the outcry would come from Americans themselves. In the case of shipping the Pietà, protests came from both sides of the Atlantic. The move was a gamble, for sure, but in retrospect, the exposure to this masterpiece led me, in a way, back to academia to study art history. My very first class was Italian Renaissance Sculpture. For all of Robert Moses’ bluster, the fair really was a "summer university."

Ever since the opening of the first "world’s fair" in London’s Crystal Palace in 1851, education has always been a feature, albeit a lesser one, of these expositions. More often, world’s fairs have been venues for the latest displays of industry and technology. As American President William McKinley presciently remarked in 1901, "Expositions are the timekeepers of progress," and seldom was this more apt than in Flushing, Queens, with IBM’s introduction of the computer ushering in the new digital era.

Increasingly, scholars are investigating world’s fairs for their broader significance as diversions from national and global issues, resulting in a more clinical and even jaundiced analysis. In the case of the 1964–1965 fair — whose second season opened on April 21, 1965 — this scrutiny has relied too heavily on the negative coverage by The New York Times. I had to ask myself: Did we visit the same fair? Although I, too, was disappointed to learn that the fair was a means to an end, and that was to finance the completion of the Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. How could all that wonderfulness have been accidental?

Nowadays, I teach art history at a local community college — College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois — and offer a one-session class on the New York World's Fair. Occasionally, I meet a student who, decades earlier, visited the fairgrounds as a child. One such fairgoer was Eva Holzapfel, then living in Huntington Station, who saved enough S&H Green Stamps to visit the fair every weekend. Stories such as Eva’s abound — on Long Island and around the country. And for the luckiest, when worldwide travel was still out of reach for most people, treasures such as the Pietà — or in Eva’s case, General Electric’s Carousel of Progress, complete with Disney animatronics — could be only a train or subway ride away.

Over time, the draw of world’s fairs began to fade. Air travel became affordable, and the internet opened up virtual travel from the comfort of our homes. Yet, nothing quite compares to the memory of the excitement, the color, and the magical fantasy of a visit to the fair. It was a dream world in real life.

This guest essay reflects the views of Ruth D. Nelson, an instructor in art history at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. The piece was adapted from her book "Our Lady of the World's Fair: Bringing Michelangelo's 'Pietà' to Queens in 1964," a Three Hills book published by Cornell University Press. It is used by permission of the publisher and author.