The Subway Sun/See the Sights at the World's Fair

Artist Fred Cooper United States, 1883 - 1962

Date1939

MediumOffset Lithograph

Dimensions15 3/4 x 22 in. (40 x 55.9 cm)

ClassificationsPoster

Credit LinePoster House Permanent Collection

Terms

Object numberPH.8065

DescriptionThe Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) opened New York City’s original underground subway line in October 1904. In order to entice people to regularly use the subway, the IRT printed two in-car poster campaigns, The Elevated Express and The Subway Sun, that highlighted each borough’s unique attractions.

This edition of The Subway Sun, designed by Fred Cooper, advertises the 1939 New York World’s Fair in Flushing, Queens. Built on a former coal ash and garbage dump, the fair was the vision of prominent city leaders and entrepreneurs, and was intended to generate economic growth and reintroduce the city as the capital of industry. Before the fair, Queens residents expressed a need for more green spaces like Central Park in Manhattan, Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Although a grand park like these was ultimately never planned for Queens, the World’s Fair grounds effectively served this purpose in the years that followed. In addition to the IRT, the Independent Subway System (ISS or IND) and the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit (BMT) also provided transport to the fair for millions of visitors. Even then, the IRT’s Flushing Line had to be extended by 50 cars in order to handle expected traffic. Between 1915 and 1940, access to rapid transit and the World’s Fair contributed to a dramatic increase in the population of Queens, which surpassed one million residents during this period.

Cooper’s two designs were intended to create excitement for the fair. One shows a grandfatherly figure reminding viewers to visit, while the other depicts two visitors flying on birds as they observe the fairground below, a play on the phrase a “bird’s eye view,” as one points to the Trylon and Perisphere. A box in the lower-left corner of the composition announces a baseball game between the sanitation and police departments at the Polo Grounds, an event unrelated to the World’s Fair but accessible by way of the IRT Ninth Avenue Line.

On View

Not on view