In Mr. Whalen's Image

(See Cover)

Nine miles from the heart of Manhattan, on what was once a Flushing (L. I.) dump, the biggest world's fair in history opens this week. Whether cynics believe it or not, New York's $156,905,000 show is not "just another fair" but "a lot more fair." It outdoes Chicago's $47,000,000 Century of Progress Exposition in showmanship, imagination and spectacle. It completely dwarfs Chicago's in size: with 200 buildings on 1,2164 acres--on which there are 62 miles of roads and paths, 10,000 trees, one good-sized lake and a lagoon, 2,000,000 shrubs and plants. Fifty-eight nations, two international organizations, 33 States, 76 concessionaires and 1,354 exhibitors are represented. To see the entire fair (including concessions) will cost $15 in admissions and will take even an iron man three full days (to nourish iron men there are 310 eating places).

Promotion. Like all world's fairs, this is a business venture, a supposedly self-supporting promotion stunt. Few such stunts actually break even. The Century of Progress did manage to net $702,171, but that was a peewee return on the $47,000,000 investment (of which $10,000,000 was put up by the fair's promoters and recovered in full). The real return was an estimated $700,000,000 in extra business it drew to Chicago.

When Chicago held its fair, the whole city was steamed up--not only the concessionaires and tradesmen, direct beneficiaries, but citizens whose enthusiasm was born of civic pride. The anomaly of the New York fair is that most New Yorkers have been genuinely bored with it. For the cosmopolitan conglomeration that is New York City has less civic interest, is less given to boosterism, than any place in the country. The sole reason New York has a fair, let alone the biggest in history, is that a small, hardheaded group high-pressured the city, the nation and most of Europe into it.

Figurehead and real head of the fair is Grover Aloysius Whalen. And the fair as it stands today--a $157,000,000 extroversion of Mr. Whalen's fantastic extrovert personality--gives him fair claim to the title of greatest salesman alive today. Grover Whalen suggested the fair in 1935 and a civil engineer named Joseph Shadgen came through with a historical excuse--the 150th anniversary of Washington's inauguration; Shadgen also suggested the site--a foul ash dump in Corona, L. I. which New York Park Commissioner Robert Moses had long itched to clean up. The original scheme was a fair the size of the Century of Progress. But with the Magnificent Whalen in the driver's seat and a flashy theme, "Building the World of Tomorrow," the budget mushroomed threefold.

Pressure. New York's fair is a private business venture set up by 121 incorporators with a board of directors, officers and all the other main adjuncts of an ordinary business enterprise except that it is "nonstock, non-profit," pays no taxes.

A $1,600,000 loan made by 16 Manhattan banks started the corporate wheels moving. Then Stockbroker Richard Whitney, now of Sing Sing, a man of no mean financial daring, took over as chairman of the Bond Sales Committee, set out to sell $27,829,500 in 4% fair debentures. But by February 1937 only $20,000,000 of the bonds had been sold and Grover Whalen had to pull a high-pressure stunt out of his black fedora. With the greatest of ease Maestro Whalen invented the Terrace Club, purportedly swank dining & wining place on the fair grounds, with a membership restricted to those who would subscribe to $5,000 of fair bonds. Even so, banks had to absorb the final $3,500,000 worth.

These bonds, plus $12,000,000 in pre-fair revenues, represents the actual stake of the corporation in the venture. On this promotional outlay, much of which is likely to be recovered, the businessmen of New York may well reap a good return.

Another $26,700,000 came from the New York City Government and $6,200,000 from the State. To get this fat participation, President Whalen contracted to give them any profits that might remain after bondholders were paid off. And when the fair is over, the reclaimed-dump site, including four of the fair buildings, will revert to the city as a park half again as large as Manhattan's famed Central Park and valued in the grandiloquent Whalen fashion at $100,000,000. New York State and City thus are guaranteed a certain tangible return on their money.

The Federal Government's $3,505,000 contribution is little more than a gift, with some slight value as good-will advertising. All told, other States came through with only $2,000,000--which they may hope to get back in the form of extra summer visitors.

Foreign nations put up $31,000,000 for buildings alone, sent $100,000,000 worth of exhibits to fill them. This was the first of Whalen's big coups. When he went to Europe he found that all the major nations except Russia belonged to the International Bureau of Expositions. When the Bureau decided on only a limited participation in the fair, President Whalen blandly returned to Manhattan, presently announced that Russia would build a $4,000,000 pavilion. Unwilling to play second fiddle in any swing session of propaganda, the other nations promptly upped their appropriations. In the event of war or peace this might be money well spent on improving public relations, attracting tourists or increasing exports.

Grover Whalen had no difficulty selling $17,500,000 worth of concessions. But wooing exhibitors was harder work. Nonetheless, he managed to land $30,000,000 worth of entries. When the automobile tycoons hung back, he played General Motors, Ford and Chrysler off against each other so skilfully that he wound up with lavish exhibits from all three. While Heinz held out for a pickle-shaped building, Grover Whalen signed up so many other food exhibitors that Heinz was finally glad to accept half of another, more prosaic building.

These typify the way industry fell for Whalen sales talk. Typical of the gamble exhibitors are taking, General Motors reputedly put $5,000,000 into its building. Since G. M. will sell nothing on the premises, it is investing only in advertising and goodwill. Whether this huge expenditure (plus the cost of operating the exhibit) will pan out is General Motors' worry. Grover Whalen sold it to them. The same may be said for many another individual display. Several industries, such as railroads, glass,* aviation, utilities and petroleum, recognizing the fact, got together on cooperative exhibits where the heavy cost is split and individual trademarks are played down.

The buildings which house these exhibits, some of which are almost complete fairs in themselves, are for the most part individually homely. In mass, however, they are peculiarly stimulating. The bright colors and bizarre shapes are gay, the blank walls excellent frames for frequent murals, some good and many not so good. The planning is superb, the lighting exceedingly effective. The overwhelming impression is of incredible, lavish bigness.

Last week the fair grounds were pandemonium, with trucks snorting up to every building and 25,000 workers adding final touches, while a flood of concessionaires including some Seminole Indians stood around ogling (see cut, p. 72). President Whalen boasts, however, that opening day will find the fair about 99% completed. Farthest from completion is the huge amusement section, but even there some 65 separate diversions are ready. One thing World's Fair veterans may find lacking is sex. Despite announced appearances of such numbers as Delia ("Rose Dance") Carroll, who once lifted Adolf Hitler's brows several pegs, Grover Whalen last week insisted that there would be nothing at the fair to shock anyone.

$56 Apiece. Century of Progress visitors spent an estimated $45 apiece. A FORTUNE survey found that 25% of U. S. families expect to attend the New York fair and President Whalen estimated that each visitor would spend $56 apiece, a reasonable estimate since Manhattan's nightlife and Manhattan's shops provide more chances to spend money than Chicago's. All told, he foresees a billion dollars worth of business for New York City, which is supposed to swell to $10,000,000,000 before it has spent its force. The fair estimates that the billion will be spent as follows:

At the fair $70,000,000

Entertainment 200,000,000

Personal Services 50,000,000

Housing 200,000,000

Communications 10,000,000

Merchandise 140,000,000

Transportation 100,000,000

Food & Drink 230,000,000

Already the fair has brought much new business to New York. The Hotel Astor, partly in anticipation of fair-increased business, spent $1,500,000 on new elevators, air conditioning, etc. Property owners along Queens Boulevard built $90,000,000 worth of dwellings. The fourth largest suspension bridge in the world (across the East River at Whitestone), an $18,000,000 project, will be opened day before the fair. North Beach airport near the fair was rebuilt at a cost of $35,000,000.

Already the fair's business stimulus has spread far beyond Manhattan. Washington is sprucing up for an expected 5,000,000 more summer visitors than usual. The $100,000.000 worth of materials used in building the fair have come from every corner of the U. S. Labor has benefited by some 96,000,000 man-hours. American Express Co. reports an 8 to 10% increase in export and import freight due to the fair. Railroads, airlines, busses joyously await "the greatest travel movement in history."

All fair contracts were signed for one year, but it is no secret that this Greatest Show on Earth will probably run a second season. If admissions reach the estimated minimum of 40,000,000 (most people are expected to make at least three visits to the fair), Mr. Whalen's project will lose $3,941,445. If 50,000,000 attend, there should be a surplus of $1,024,158. If it is a two-year fair with 40,000,000 the first year, 24,000,000 the second, the surplus will rise to $8,269,555. Any loss will be borne by the bondholders.

Grover Whalen stoutly denies there is any likelihood of loss from war. He argues that only 500,000 of his hoped-for visitors are expected from Europe, that the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915 succeeded in the face of a war, and that anyhow there is a strong nonwar omen in the fact that foreign exhibitors have not been holding back.

"Mr. President." Grover Whalen is popularly supposed to be nothing but a good front man. He is that, but he is also an overwhelming executive. He has dominated the career of the fair just as completely as the trylon dominates its landscape.

He arises at seven, has an hour's stiff exercise, tries to get to work before his three secretaries. Barrel-chested and haughty, he pads about his swank offices in the Empire State Building or another set of offices at the fair with regal pomp (stenographers greet him: "Good morning, Mr. President"). Once a week he confers with a management council, whose three chief members are Vice Presidents Howard A. Flanigan, John Philip Hogan and Stephen F. Voorhees. Mr. Hogan is the fair's chief engineer, Mr. Voorhees its chief architect. Howard Flanigan is as close as anyone gets to being No. 2 man. He is officially in charge of commercial exhibits, concessions, and the amusement area.

In keeping with the Whalen vanity as well as the Whalen dominance, all fair publicity releases go out in his name alone. He personally arranged and signed most of the major contracts, hired most of the important employes. His salary is supposed to be $100,000 and he earns it with such smart stunts as the commercial tie-ups he arranged for the fair. He has licensed the trylon & perisphere design for use on some 25,000 products--wallpaper, jewelry, furniture, cameras, rugs, etc.--at a royalty of 3 to 10% of the wholesale price of such articles sold. This has already produced $100,000 in unbudgeted revenue, is expected to bring in $1,000,000 eventually.

The management has had its troubles, but has ridden through them all. There was a nasty squabble with Engineer Shadgen. Given a $625-a-month berth at the fair, he was presently fired as incompetent. When he brought suit for $2,000,000 the fair settled with him for $45,000. Then there was the proposed Freedom Pavilion to display the works of pre-Nazi Germans and those exiled by Nazidom. This looked as though it might cause trouble and, according to an article in this week's Nation, was quietly squelched by its professed friends after Grover Whalen had promised it a site--an incident that aroused bitter resentment in many a Manhattan liberal. When the art world frothed because there was no art exhibit at the fair (the original argument was that all art shown would be a functional part of the exhibits), President Whalen gracefully gave in, arranged a substantial gallery. There have been complaints of discrimination against Negroes, Civil Service men and veterans. And there have been the customary charges of graft.

Grover Whalen admits that the fair is being run as a hardheaded business venture and not a philanthropy, that wherever the fair could turn an honest penny, it has done so. Those who bought the most fair bonds got a break. The fair pipes in water free from the city but is metering its tenants. Concessionaires' cash registers are rented from the fair. Many are the sharp but legal practices. The usual forms of building graft were supposedly prevented by strict competitive bidding for contracts. But it is quite possible some insiders stand to profit handsomely from the real-estate boom in Flushing that is sure to come. In any case, there is likely to be little muckraking before the fair is over: the City itself has too big a stake in it.

"Gardenia of the Law." Grover Whalen got his first name because he was born in New York City on June 2, 1886, the marriage day of President Grover Cleveland. In 1917, he hitched his wagon to the rising star of Mayor John F. Hylan, became a figure in politics and a great success as a civic greeter (of the late Queen Marie of Rumania, Colonel Charles Lindbergh, hundreds of other personages). After that Grover Whalen slipped easily into a $100,000-a-year berth at Wanamaker's store, returned to civic affairs in the Mayor Walker regime when he became police commissioner and won his immortal epitaph--"The Gardenia of the Law." Grover Whalen has also held a fat job with Schenley Distillers and once served as New York City NRAdministrator.*

At 52 Grover Whalen has lost his leanness, but remains in top physical trim. He diets, neither drinks nor smokes, rides a lot. He has a country place at Roslyn, L. I., a town house at 48 Washington Mews--an alley off Fifth Avenue near Washington Square where Manhattan rich used to stable their horses and now like to live themselves.

There he lives in two remodeled stables which express his character. Their antique furniture is sober, solid, sleek. The decor is dashing--glass bricks instead of windows, great expanses of mirror, an occasional ultramodern doodad. Evidence of Whalen the businessman is tactfully absent. But Whalen the civic leader shows in prints of old New York, Whalen the horseman in a framed blue-ribbon, Whalen the family man in a group shot of his attractive wife and three children. And the gadgets display the Whalen flair for imaginative showmanship. Each step in one flight of stairs is a drawer. A flick of the hand converts part of his bar into a spare bed.

Last week for the first time in three years Grover Whalen had time to luxuriate among such playthings: he lay ill at home suffering from a heavy cold and a bad case of overwork. Since he became fair president in 1936 he has averaged a 12-to-16-hr. working day--selling hardheaded big businessmen the notion that it would pay them to put $157,000,000 into the Flushing Meadows.

With the "World of Tomorrow" poised for the kill, he was glad of the chance to rest. For ahead still lies the serious business of selling the world tomorrow. He has got the circus into his tent. Now he has to get the public into his circus.

* Last weekend, the $1,000,000 Glass Center building was damaged by fire. First reported in true World's Fair spirit as a million-dollar loss, the damage actually came to a few thousand dollars.

* He was in charge of the world's ''greatest mass demonstration of industry and commerce," the NRA parade of September 1933. With 254,475 in line, the parade marched from 1:30 until 8 p.m.--past Eleanor Roosevelt, three Governors, numerous notables, including Mr. Whalen.

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