"As for their their 'red and white umbrella,' it was built by Owens-Corning Fiberglass Corporation as part of the Sinclair Oil company’s exhibition at the 1964/65 New York World’s Fair. Their history on the back of each menu explains 'Sinclair was awarded the contract to supply fuel to the fair’s 825-boat state-of-the-art marina in Flushing Bay, and they placed the umbrella over the floating fuel dock at the front of the marina. The umbrella became the main attraction of the World’s Fair Marina and the focus of thousands of photographs.'

The dock was abandoned after the fair, and in 1968 Mario S. LaMotta joined with Sinclair Oil to renovate the dock and tow it to Manhasset Bay where it sat at the head of the Bay Marina and was used once again for refueling. When the Marina began construction of LaMotta’s waterside restaurant in 1993, the historic 'umbrella' was built in to the restaurant’s construction and now serves as an easy landmark from the coast on the water as you near the restaurant as well as the protection for a different kind of world-class fare.

— Tamara Hartman, Queens Tribune"

Mr. John Brennan was involved with the demoliton of the Japanese Pavilion and prepared the stones of the beautiful Japanese Wall to be transported to Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY. Mr. Brennan writes:

The Japanese Pavilion at the Fair was a square in its outline. The exterior walls were made of concrete. These walls sloped inward and were about 20 feet high. It was as if it were to become a pyramid, but it was a pyramid that was cut off when it reached some 20 feet in height. When these concrete walls were done, the plans called for a facade, made of lava stones, to be laid up on the outside faces of these sloping walls.These stones were dark in color, almost a black. They varied in size but had a varying thickness of about eight inches, as I remember them. They each could be carried by one man.They were to be set about one inch from the outside faces of the walls. The one inch space between the walls and the stones was to be filled with mortar. This method of building the facing material onto an existing wall was a technique well known in Japan but not so in the United States. It required, after the stones were set in place, that the joints between them be stuffed with rags to prevent leakage of the mortar. The high strength mortar (5000 P.S.I., I believe) was then mixed and carefully ladled into the space behind the stones. The rags were left iin place until the mortar had become solid. This procedure was carried out by workmen who had been brought in from Japan for the purpose. In order for them to work, it was necessary to get the approval of the Bricklayers' union in New York, which had jurisdiction of the work there. A deal was struck and the Japanese workers were approved. I do not know the details of that deal. When the rags were removed from between the joints, the visible parts of the lava stones were not stained and the mortar itself was at least one inch inwards of the surface of the stones. There were also carvings made in the lava stones. These carvings extended over many stones and each one had a special meaning. I am not sure what those meanings were, but they would have been significant to a knowledgeable person I think, but am not sure, that these carvings were made after the stones had been set. For example, there was a carving of the sun in its course through the sky. This carving was 20 or more feet in length. It would, I think, have been impossible to make this meaningful carving before the stones were laid up.

Another part of the gift to Manhattanville College was the stones and the sculpture that the designers of the pavillion had used in the decorative gardens outside the building itself. The placement of these garden stones and sculptures was a consideration of great importance. The sculptures in this portion of the gift were made by a very well-known Japanese sculptor by the name of Noguchi.

When the time came for me to deliver on my promise to transport both the lava stones and the garden stones and sculptures, we had to think of the best way we could preserve the stones without damaging them too much in the process. The garden stones and sculptures did not present a problem since they were not fixed in place and could be readily gotten at. The lava stones, however, were another matter. They were affixed to the building with 5000 P.S.I. mortar. I probably do not remember, nor will I try to tell, all the alternative ways we considered, but I do remember what we did. First we painted on each stone a serial number which would identify where it had been set in the wall. Then we hired a photographer who was to take pictures of each outdside face of the wall. These photographs were to show the numbers on each stone and would preserve a record of the carving in the stones. We then hired a crane with a wrecking ball. The crane would swing the ball and hit the inside of the wall and thereby "pop" the lava stones off the outside face. This worked well enough and the stones along with the photographs were delivered to the college. Where exactly the stones were located on the campus I do not know. The photographs, no doubt, were given to the administration up there. Submitted May 8, 2002.