The 1964 World's Fair: "Peace Through Understanding"
Art historian, Dr. Amy Raffel, returns to the Harrison Public Library (virtually) to explore the 1964 World's Fair, which was held in Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, NY.
The theme of the 1964 World's Fair was "Peace Through Understanding" and it welcomed more than 50 million visitors.
Amy Raffel has a PhD degree from the CUNY Graduate Center and a Master’s degree from the Institute of Fine Arts (NYU) in Contemporary Art History. Her doctoral research focused on Keith Haring and his Pop Shop, as well as the eighties New York art scene. She has researched, written, edited for several art websites and publications, and has worked for many educational art platforms. For the past two years, she has worked at the Queens Museum as the Andrew W. Mellon Interpretation Research Fellow, making art accessible and engaging for all audiences. She has done extensive archival research into the Museum's collections, including its 1939-40 and 1964-65 World Fairs objects and memorabilia (particularly the Panorama of the City of New York), as well as research into the building's history and the surviving Fair structures in Flushing-Meadows Corona Park. She has created a variety of interpretative content on these collections and histories, from narrated videos, wall labels, and audio tours, and has regularly given tours of the collection to visitors and school groups.