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Unprecedented Progress
in Twenty Five Years
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The
Westinghouse Time Capsule is suspended between three pylons of
an open-air pavilion being built by Westinghouse Electric Corporation.
Roofed areas around the monument at center, which now marks the
site of the 1938 Time Capsule, will contain exhibits of both capsules
and a forecast of life in the future. Head on cover is that of
Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, who looks both into the past
and the future. Mr. Eliot Noyes of new Canaan, Connecticut, is
consultant director of design.
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SOURCE: Pavilion
Groundbreaking Brochure, New York World's Fair Corporation
Excerpts from transcription
of remarks made by Westinghouse Electric Corporation and World's
Fair officials at the Westinghouse Time Capsule site, New York
World's Fair, Friday, June 14, 1963.
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Robert
Moses, Fair president and Mark W. Cresap, Jr., president of Westinghouse
Electric Corporation, at the site of the Westinghouse Time Capsule.
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DR. ROBERTO DE MENDOZA [Deputy Chief
of Protocol]: Mr. Cresap, Mr. Moses, distinguished guests, ladies
and gentlemen. We are gathered here for a really momentous event
-- the sinking of the shaft for the Westinghouse Exhibit which
will be dedicated as an inspired legacy which Westinghouse is
bequeathing to the peoples of the year 6939, a legacy of a record
of our civilization and the rapid progress it has made during
the last quarter century. It is very fitting and natural that
Westinghouse, which has pioneered so very many of the great scientific
and technical conquests of our age, should bequeath this legacy
to a civilization which will flourish 5000 years hence.
It gives me great pleasure to present
our first speaker, Mr. Martin Stone, director of the Industrial
Section of the New York World's Fair.
MR. MARTIN STONE: Thank you, Dr. De
Mendoza. Mr. Cresap, Mr. Moses, ladies and gentlemen. We are
delighted to welcome Westinghouse to the Fair -- those of you
who have come here for this ceremony as well as those you represent:
the 200,000 Westinghouse stockholders; the more than 100,000
employees in nearly a hundred plants throughout the U.S.A.; the
350 independent distributors in 166 countries and territories.
Westinghouse produces elevators, flash bulbs, refrigerators,
radios, television receivers, ovens, air conditioners, washers
and dryers; it owns five television and seven radio stations.
It contributes to research in radar, electronics, power plants,
nuclear submarines, space craft, desalinization and medicine
-- in all 300,000 variations of 8,000 basic products. This is
Westinghouse.
With the wholehearted support of Mr.
Cresap and his associates, I think you can take new confidence
Mr. Moses, in telling the story of the Olympics of Progress.
To put it another way, you can be sure if it's Westinghouse.
Thank you.
DR. ROBERTO DE MENDOZA: Thank you Mr.
Stone. Our next speaker's outstanding achievements in a career
dedicated to the public have showered him with honors at home
and abroad. The success of very fast, very needed and highly
complex projects have been due mainly to his untiring efforts
and guiding genius throughout the years. Now he is applying all
his knowledge, energy and exceptional organizing ability to forging
into reality the greatest Fair ever conceived by the mind of
man. It is my privilege to give you The Honorable Robert Moses,
president of the New York World's Fair Corporation.
MR. ROBERT MOSES: I've often said that
I like this job because it represents the completion of something
that was planned and envisioned a number of years ago but never
was completed. Back in 1936 and 1937 when I was City Park Commissioner
and also a State official, Mayor LaGuardia asked me to find a
site for a world's fair. This place was selected because it was
the geographical center and close to the population center of
New York. That fair wasn't as successful financially as it might
have been. It was a great show, but when it was over there wasn't
enough money to finish the park, so in a sense it was unfinished
business. Now we are very glad to come back here to the second
World's Fair, not only to have a bigger and better Fair in the
same area, but to finish the park -- one of our great ambitions.
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I don't suppose any two people are ever
going to agree on the emphasis to be put on different things
in an international exposition. We all agree that the objective
is Peace through Understanding, that we are organizing a sort
of Olympics of Progress, that we invite people from all over
the world to bring their best products in free and open competition.
We also agree that it isn't a diplomatic venture and not a question
of protocol. We will never convince those who are interested
in culture and the arts that we've done enough for them, and
I suppose that applies to all other realms and avenues and ares
of business endeavor. |
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I do want to say this and I do not say
it to flatter those who are here today: probably the most important
parts of this Fair are the Industrial and Transportation Areas.
The thing that impresses foreigners most are our achievements
made possible through our private enterprise system. The Westinghouse
Exhibit will be one of the great shows here. We welcome our friends
here and we are sure that what Westinghouse accomplishes here
will do them credit and will do us credit. Another thing we appreciate
is the fact that these people know how to build, they know how
to design and they know how to get things done on time.
Mr. Cresap, I want to welcome you and
present to you this medallion as a memento of this occasion.
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| MR. MARK W. CRESAP, JR. [President, Westinghouse
Electric Corporation]: Thank you very much, Mr. Moses. I don't
think it would be possible for Pittsburgh to welcome you to a
New York World's Fair, but I do want to welcome our other guests
to the Westinghouse Exhibit site and express to all of you our
pleasure in having you share this occasion with us. I think I
should point out at this time that this is not a groundbreaking
-- it's a casing sinking. As such it represents a preliminary
step in our effort to project the understanding which is a major
part of the theme of the Fair. |
Mark
W. Cresap, Jr., president of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation,
receiving the Fair medallion from Robert Moses, president of the
Fair.
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We planned this exhibit first, for
the millions of visitors to the Fair during the two years it
will be open, and ultimately for those people who will unearth
this cache about 5000 years from now, if they can find it. Much
of the record of the 20th century civilization is located fifty
feet beneath us in the Westinghouse Time Capsule buried here
at the 1939 Fair. Its contents provide a record of the history,
faiths, arts, sciences and customs suitably preserved and encased
in a special vessel addressed to the people of 6939 A.D.
Its location and the means of translating
the information to the archaeologists of the future, should knowledge
of the English language be lost in the interval, is on record
in libraries, museums, monasteries, convents, lamasaries and
temples throughout the world. However, in the twenty five years
since the last fair, man has made unprecedented progress in science
and in many other endeavors -- a fact which is most evident in
this vast complex of building and exhibits which will make up
the Fair.
The rapid pace of our civilization
is illustrated by a very wide variety of achievements ranging
from the conquest of Mt. Everest to the four minute mile on the
one hand, to space exploration and the utilization of the power
of the atom on the other, as well as an important new matter
concerned with providing water for the peoples of the world in
the future through the purification of sea water for human consumption.
In the past twenty five years man
has developed wonder drugs, polio vaccine, commercial television,
jet aircraft, the United Nations, but also, unfortunately, has
unleashed forces which, subject to the frailty of human control,
emphasize the importance of preserving a record of his achievements.
For these reasons, a new Time Capsule recording the events and
activities of this most significant quarter century in man's
history is being prepared for burial adjoining the original Time
Capsule at the bottom of this casing.
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The new Time Capsule will be suspended
in the air fifty feet above us from three structural towers which
will make up the Westinghouse Exhibit. The open-roofed areas
at the base of the three pylons will house a full-scale model
of the original Time Capsule and a representative selection of
its contents -- materials selected for the new capsule -- and
a projection of life in the future.
The contents of the new Time Capsule
will be chosen by a special committee of authorities in such
areas as medicine and health, space, science, atomic energy,
communications, education, sports, recreation and transportation.
The record of achievements during the past twenty five years,
recommended by these efforts, will be preserved within the capsule
together with new or modified articles of common use in our daily
live.
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| It seems to me appropriate that on this
14th day of June -- Flag Day -- we display one such article,
the American flag two stars stronger than it was in the original
Capsule. The addition of these two stars illustrates the changes
which have occurred in history in the past twenty five years
and the need to add a postscript to our letter to the people
of the future. I will conclude our ceremonies and inaugurate
the driving of the casing by raising a flag. When it has reached
the top of the pole an electric switch will start building up
steam in the pile driver in ten seconds and the casing will be
on its way to locating the final resting place of the new Time
Capsule. |
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WESTINGHOUSE TIME
CAPSULE
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New York World's
Fair 1964-1965
Man's progress during the past
25 years will be recorded for peoples 5,000 years in the future
in Westinghouse Time Capsule II, to be buried alongside the original
1939 Time Capsule at the close of the Fair.
Source: Official Postcard
by Dexter Press, West Nyack, NY
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