
( NYC Board of Education Photo / WNYC Archive Collections )
This episode is from the WNYC archives. It may contain language which is no longer politically or socially appropriate.
Shorter version of T249, T250, Catalog # 6186.
Dedication of the World's Fair Hall of Science. City Council President Paul Screvane opens the dedication by describing how the hall, built for the fair, will become a permanent monument to Science in Flushing Meadows. He then introduces Queens Borough President Mario J. Cariello.
Cariello thanks all in attendance. He introduces two Queens youths, Larry Reed, an outstanding Boyscout, and Joseph D. Denado, and outstanding member of the Boys Club of Queens. These boys both exhibited an interest in aeronautics and space flight.
George M. Bunker, president of the Martin Marietta Corporation speaks. His company made a major donation to the the Hall of Science with the exhibit "Rendezvous in Space." He speaks about the excitement of the space age.
Robert Moses and Mayor Robert Wagner also speak. The recording Frank Capra, film producer, who introduces a film that will be on exhibition in the Hall.
Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection
WNYC archives id: 70562
Municipal archives id: T833
This is a machine-generated transcript. Text is unformatted and may contain errors.
IOW I got Mr Moses to web the very distinguished guests on the dais ladies and gentlemen. I am very proud to participate in this dedication today and to be one of the initiate or as of what is to become a museum of science and technology at Flushing Meadows this morning we are joining in more than a mere dedication for another building at the World's Fair what we are doing today is taking the first major step in the creation of an enduring institution this magnificent building will be enjoyed by all the citizens of our city and the millions of visitors during the famine and also for generations there after today we are in the midst of a new age and a new era one of which the scientific and technological breakthroughs are felt almost immediately in our daily lives the average citizen is I think dead by the developments in laboratories and in research centers as never before in the history of mine thus even the taste as well as the safety of the water we drink and the food we eat are immediately affected by scientific and technological research we had our children must learn more than we know now about this vast body of knowledge its methods its language and its history none of us can afford to be illiterate and the language of science our schools and colleges and our universities have the primary task of instructing the young in the ways and principles of science the schools have accepted that responsibility but other institutions both private and public also have responsibilities to discharge. This heart of science as one of the ways of meeting one of those responsibilities we foresee here and institution of excellence dedicated to serving the entire community and the country. New York City is noted as a worldwide scientific and research center it is also a center for many of the great industrial and technological complexes of our nation and we are very proud of that we hope that this new was stablish men will serve to one house that position of preeminence we are on the threshold of a new beginning here at Flushing Meadows this is a beginning in providing a center which New York City needs which will make our twentieth century world more intelligible to the men and women and children who visit its exhibits this year and in the many years to come this great World's Fair may be remembered as the fair under those auspices the Museum of Science and Technology was very small on just Bob Moses is to be warmly congratulated on this dedication so is the World's Fair this Hall of Science is to be congratulated on its approaching completion so is the city of New York thank you very much. I would I like to one produce a gentleman whom has been with this project from its inception but has given great leadership and inspiration to what the bar of president of the great borough of Queens the honorable Mario J. got a yellow. Thank you thank you President of the council post divine. Abbate man of my Wagner and our indefatigable builder and great opera tect of the future Bob Moses and a Mr Bunker and Mr Webb. And my colleagues on the Board of Estimate Mr Munder Skalkaho and Mr Dudley reverend clergy distinguished guests and residents of the world and out of space my brief part of the program is to extend a word of welcome. And here in the center of this world and with what we hope to achieve with all of science the center of all of space I love the music today and we're blessed with the sunshiny day to give it to them purpose and success to this wonderful project that we are about to unveil and. When I was invited to say a few words and be here I felt that I could not attend by myself alone and so I invited and brought with me here today the youth of the borough of Queens that will represent the youth of the world. Who will be the principal beneficiaries of the great discoveries and things which we hope to be able to be the first in outer space and I brought with me Larry Reid one of the outstanding Boy Scouts of the bar of Queens and Joseph Di Donato one of the outstanding members of the boys club of Queens both of whom are interested and are studying items Adam structure and energy and also engineering and scientific or in outer space now both here with us today so I say with that thought I conclude and say that this is another part of the resurgence that is going on in the poem Queens and it will be one part of one of the greatest eastern seaboard talks when all of the things we contemplated ought completed thank you very much. Thank you very much Mr President ladies and gentlemen. The next gentleman I'm about to introduce is another man who showed great courage and great cooperation to bring about what will be considered I am sure in the judgment of the amateur and the professional as one of the most dramatic and exciting shows of its kind anywhere in the world this man despite many obstacles delays in construction and so on has stayed with us and has completed I think only about four o'clock this morning what we will say very shortly a great show and I would like to present to you now a man whom we consider a loyal and a strong friend the president of the Martin Marietta Corporation Mr George bunker Thank you. Thank you Mr scrimping. Mayor Wagner distinguished guests ladies and gentlemen. This is been a very stimulating project for the Martin company in many ways our collaboration with the World's Fair in the city of New York and the joint planning vision that have made this far science possible has been a great experience for us. Also I want to pay particular tribute to Mr Frank Capra. And our social with him going to very. Interesting an amazing association between the scientific fraternity and the Humanist the Mr Cambria. Spaceflight is very close to us that Mark. Progress in this field is very rapid so rapid that our visions of the future need refreshment from time to time only a few years ago we were congratulating ourselves because we had a part in launching a satellite that was the size of a great From the day we put man into our big problem oh and Venus what you will witness here this afternoon may seem futuristic but I sure you it is not less than a decade you will think it commonplace. Perhaps the most important function of a science center. Is to relate the forseeable future into open people's eyes to its possibilities and this heart of science with its comforting assurance a permanency. Where hopefully we are hopeful of stirring the imaginations of a younger generation. In this hall we are all right Robert Goddard's and the John Glenn's of the future may have their ambitions fired and their energies directed toward the promise of the Space Age This is what makes us particularly happy to have made a significant contribution to this whole. All and in the new permanent Science Center. It's there far with great pride and pleasure and I turned over the Martin exhibit rendezvous in space to Mayor Wagner and to the city of New York thank you thank you very much Mr Bunker. I would like to acknowledge the very fine cooperation we have received from many other exhibit AWS I will not attempt to mention of all who are exhibiting in the lower portions of our Hall of Science and have been for some weeks now and I think the thing that has amazed them as it has amazed us is that despite the fact that we have been in the midst of construction in the middle of a job site we have attracted more than thirty thousand people a day to this basement area and I think this is a great tribute to the quality of the exhibits and to the dedication of those people who participated and I want to thank them publicly for all they have done. And another. Another like you if you will and this is to a very modest man who is seated here on the day as who is the architect who designed this most unusual but most attractive building our very good friend Wally Harris and why me. While I'm thanking people. I would like my Wagner a moment but I also want to find all of the people officials at least in the city of New York who go to the funds not once not twice but I think about three or four times as the costs continue to spiral and I refer to the members of the New York City Council many of whom are seated here in the front and the members of the Board of Estimate all with us here on the days we appreciate it thank you very much thank you and now it is my pleasure to introduce our next speaker. And he needs no introduction certainly from the he is known to all of you here he is known to everyone in our city our state and our nation and yes beyond even into that outer space our president of the World's Fair corporation the Honorable Robert Moses thank you. Bob Wagner all of a friend. Of this unveiling of the march Marianne of space exhibit. I'd like to make a few observations which are trying but may bear repetition. Science was old two thousand five hundred years ago. Well it gives now but I'm stymied working with logic around my lab or a laboratory and gave us basic formulas mathematical physics. To mock or. As of after all with no laboratory at all which they all long before. The relation of science to the humanities plague the sages about. The Greeks anticipated for oil and a word for it psychiatry. As the preacher in the Old Testament remarked there's really nothing new under the sun. I said of the June fifteenth opening of that we at the fair been charged with favoring business above culture science above the ox and fun and fun above religion and the eternal verities as all the sum total of human knowledge faith and endeavor can be exactly in mathematically divided into exclusive C.E.O. vacuum packed tight compartments this is nonsense these object use overlap and run together the subdivisions are fit to meet are for convenience only. There is contrast to Memphis's but not necessarily in conflict between science and the humanities we promise that our whole of science would be in the broadest sense would in the broadest sense include all the humanities it will if they use it if bright minds would chatter about form and function more familiar with the classics they would know that useful things are not necessarily beautiful but the beauty always has yours I believe was Harrisson as illustrated this maximum in this whole it is of course impossible to explain architecture I have admitted before that I don't know what all my house and had in mind and perhaps he doesn't know him self the cleft rock convolution well had once a fortress in the cathedral where some unseen organ is to play without bells bellows pipes keyboards or human hands literally a tour de force where a gigantic toy seeks to elucidate science. For the moment as to the future the campus we envision here in the park after the fair will be large enough to accommodate whatever government research and private philanthropy can be persuaded to provide on this aw spacious occasion the movie is one of our objectives I like particularly the concept of Frank Capra the new sponsors of a sort of second chance for changing the company I am our small planet a strategic way station in the galaxies of outer space. There is today extraordinary public interest in space exploration where man's mechanical forerunner is gone he is bound to fall Meanwhile an ingenious three dimensional show will serve to explain the fourth dimension a man's reaches Browning's sad should exceed his grasp I want to have a full million millions will see this counterfeit present. Thanks to the city to the National Aeronautics and Space Agency to Martin Marietta and all the all those who have been engaged in producing this extraordinary spectacle. Thank you and now ladies and gentlemen to. The man who. Actually gave the inspiration and the leadership to all of us in order to fulfill our mission the man who for a great number of years had deplored the fact that we the largest city in the United States did not have a science center and who through his efforts and leadership brought about our great mayor of the city of New York the honorable Robert F. White thank you thank you. Thank you very much. Friend post vein I them again my Most is Jim Webb. Bunker president Mike Carey of our other colleagues on the Board of Estimate colleagues in the council and friends. I feel great pride and satisfaction in being with you today to dedicate this Hall of Science. Temporarily a part of the World's Fair but that's going to be a permanent major fixture and feature of the borough of Queens and an important addition to the cultural and educational facilities of the city of New York. It is the hope and expectation of many of us assembled here that what we are dedicating here this morning will progress of become a world center of display and communication for that entire complex of classified knowledge stored in research that we call science. Millions of people from all over the world will advance at this Hall of Science in the months ahead I'm sure it will be come to be one of the most talked of features of this great World's Fair but as I said this is only a grove of which we hope will become a great forest. Perhaps I'm getting a little ahead of myself because we are here today to dedicate the present first and then the future. Certainly a great proportion of this fair is dedicated to. And reflects the age of science science in which we live. This all of science is designed to provide the overlook the overall view and panorama of the Great Leap science has taken for with and through the mind of man. It is well that in dedicating this Hall of Science we recall that science was an UPS UPS cure and heretical approach only three hundred years ago. And ten sixteen sixteen hundred and ten rather when the great Galileo undertook to prove by logic and experimentation the theory that the earth revolved around the sun rather than vice versa he was taking his life in his hand Galileo barely managed to accept escape being burned at the stake he was accused of threatening the foundations of both religion and society scientific experimentation itself was judged to be heretical. Science was attacked as being sacrilegious yet today and more so every day science and the scientific method dominate almost all our concepts indeed the consequences of the scientific method dominate our imagination and command our results finally science challenges the very existence of mankind. This is so very true that we must now ask ourselves does mankind control the final consequences of scientific knowledge or do these consequences control and dominate mankind. This is the background against which this whole of science rises this edifice I believe can help pose the central question of our age. Surely this must be more than a showcase of my modern gadgetry and a con of all of scientific magic. It must instruct inspire and enrich and it must do more it must dramatize the unity of the world and its place in the universe the incredible Mabo model of the human brain is that it integrates learning and experience at the same time however a major effect of the continuing scientific advances has been to make the integration of knowledge increasingly difficult science does that divides knowledge and the world into an increasing number of components just of that's ties taught us how to divide matter itself into smaller and smaller units perhaps in this hall of science knowledge can be put back together again and as much as one piece as possible. In this Hall of Science advances of science will be reflected and the history of science will be dramatized here there will be demonstrated the great ladder which leads from the firm footing of tested facts upwards upwards toward the moon but I sense the planets outward into boundless space at this point on behalf of the citizens of us said I want to thank God good friend Jim Webb for his great help and encouragement thank the Martin Marietta corporation and particularly Mr Bunker and Mr Herman for the generous gift of the million dollar the picture of that landing on the moon which is actually scheduled to occur sometime before one thousand nine hundred seventy S. Hall of Science and the exhibits contained in it and the additions we hope to see erected after the fair is open I designed to be cooperative ventures between government and the scientific community has represented both by the great corporate laboratories and by. The great university laboratory. Bus I want to thank the Directorate of the World's Fair to for its part in arranging and helping to produce this great establishment and for joining the city in conceiving and underwriting what is yet to come on this site after the fair is open to dedicated public servants deserve particular mention for their great contributions first I want to mention that man that died dynamo of perpetual energy Robert Moses most of you now that I don't always agree with him but I never fail to appreciate his determination in pursuing the completion of an undertaking in which he believes the whole of science before us is a case in point I also want to thank city council president post prevailing for his valiant efforts I'm behalf of this pioneering venture he was among the first to recognize the merits and the great possibilities of all of science at Flushing Meadows he was one of the first to win vision the great kind and enclave of science of which this whole will be a nucleus it is to be borne in mind that what we plan and hope for here is an undertaking not just by the city of New York but by any particular person or group but by the world of science as represented in America and particularly in New York. All of the scientific world must feel that this has to be their center for the public display of scientific achievement for communication to the laborer and for graphic teaching to be young This is what I hope to see rise this is what I hope the scientific world will come to expect to see hear and to participate in creating. This is our purpose. And I certainly hope that it finds a corresponding measure in our capacity. I believe that these hopes will be realized and I expect that many of those present then many of those who are not present will assist us in bringing this design to fruition of course so that we laymen can do is to provide the shall we can arrange that there should be put together the bricks and the mortar and the steel and the glass we can put the name of the Hall of Science up in lights and make sure that it is seen by all who enter the gates of our city but what is presented inside this hall of science related to become the Museum of Science and Technology is up to the scientific community they can make it become in fact a great center of communication with the labor world or they can let it become just another building in New York City. We are aware that the scientific world too has been fragmented the body of scientific knowledge has become so vast that no scientists today can hope to become an expert in more than one or two subjects scientists even in adjacent fields find they speak different languages they find it difficult to communicate even with each other not to speak of with a layman yet communication is essential I don't leap between the different branches of science but above all between the men of science and the workaday world the world of government and of every day thought and action just as no man is an island by himself so no science nor even the whole of science is an island by itself science science is a part of the kind of an end of knowledge and part of the world of mankind. The basic idea of democracy is that all men. And thinking and acting together should direct the future of each nation and hence of the world and that their decisions should be based on all of a level knowledge including scientific knowledge. Of course it is impossible today with the scientific knowledge exploding like an atom bomb to provide each citizen with precise information of what is going on in the sub worlds of science probably the most that we can manage is to convey to the general public the changing contours of the scientific scene but the need to do this much is vital and yet the need for this kind of communication is only beginning to be met I believe that this heart of science may be an important contribution to the efforts that must be made in this direction it can seriously add up where we can serve the world to have you conserve the Elementary and intermediate school that can serve the university that is what I mean when I say I hope it will become a major center for scientific display and communication with the late world. I do not think of a science and technology buzy aim for the city of New York as a teaching museum to replace our schools and our colleges I think of the museum as a complement to education and a supplement and a reinforcement of the scientific education of all of us citizens primarily However I think of it as a center of new ideas of imagine if the present taste has a place where each of us may be thrilled by the achievements of the past and challenged by the dreams of the future for we have learned that the dreams that fifty years ago in Science other realities which influence our lives. Today. Science Museum must be dynamic it must grow with new concepts and know why I did it my suit the lives of the citizens whom it will serve and I am in whose aim of science and technology must be a community museum not only in its planning and execution but also in its service that's as it grows it can send out mobile units to other areas of the city. Possibilities for such a museum are infinite New York City's Museum of Science and Technology could become a World Center for the encouragement of scientific curiosity among you and none scientific advice yes this museum can serve many purposes I hope it will I know that the extension and expansion of this exhibit hall of science into a great scientific center can be realized there remains that central question that science belong to mankind or is mankind now powerless at the mercy of science is mankind to be like Governor tied down by the Lilliputians of science already mankind still the master of its own fate this problem can be strikingly. Sound in the center of science perhaps by dramatizing it a form and shape of the final answer can be affected and in the name of New York City and also in the name of mankind I am happy to join in dedicating this hall here today thank you very much thank you and I would like to introduce the man who has genius has put together what we are about to see. Here in the Hall of Science. A man who has been one of the great producers of film in the history of motion pictures in the United States three time Academy Awards winter the man who was genius is reflected in the show we will see shortly Mr Frank Capra Thank you. And my form of hot perspiring friends in about ten seconds will be had up this rap and at every. One of the most beautiful buildings you've ever seen in your life and much more important one of the coolest at the moment. And incidentally you will see a show we hope you like the show but if you don't like it we've got it all fixed to close the doors lock you in and turn on the heat. Out if you will kindly follow us as we go up there and. We will take you in to see this this great belly and this show which we hope you like very much thank you very much.