The Lennox Shop

 In 1928, Richard Lennox opened the Lennox House shop in a 12-foot by 18-foot cottage on the site of his grandfather's dairy farm.  Lennox created his version of a general store and featured Early American reproduction furniture.  Enhanced with rescued artifacts from the Oliver Hewlett homestead in East Rockaway (demolished in 1936) , it grew into a charming complex of buildings and a mail order business with over 100,000 customers per year.

Richard and Edith Lennox

An article in the December  29, 1994 South Shore Record states that 19 year old Richard Lennox began with a one-fifth interest in the property, a $200 wedding gift, his wife, Edith's $22-a-week secretarial job and his grandmother's signature on a bank loan. With those assets, and a $50 inventory, Lennox expanded the business, created their own brand of Early American furnishings, and expanded the ambiance of the shops. By 1953 was the subject of a feature article in the trade publication Giftwares, which shared Lennox's story, his business philosophy and his techniques for growing his business into the success that it became, attracting shoppers from all over the metropolitan area and mail orders from all over the United States.

Building the Honeymoon House (c1952).

The shop and its subsequent additions:  Easy Street (which originally featured glassware), the Card Barn, the Fireplace Room, and the Hewlett Room (elegant Early American furnishings) became a fully decorated country home and a showcase for Lennox furniture and decorating services. The 1952 construction of the Honeymoon House enlarged the display and created an environment which those who remember it still miss.

 At this time, the original Seaman homestead (home of Lennox's grandparents) was moved to the corner of Broadway and Trinity Place.   Joan Battino wrote in the December 31, 1998 South Shore Record:

Their home, shop and country store was a great success for more than 70 years.  If ever one needed a special wedding present, a baby gift, a knicknack or just a fun afternoon in a wonderful place to shop, the Lennox Shop was the first place to come to mind.  Christmas transformed the store into Santa's own private haven.  Incense burned throughout, a fire roared in ever fireplace, light hearted holiday tunes were piped into every corner and the shop was decorated from roof to floor plank with pine branches and red ribbons.  No one left without a candy cane.

Richard Lennox died in 1989 and the property was eventually sold to the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library for its 1994 expansion.


 During this month's exhibit of Five Towns History in the Library's Gallery, we have on display some memorabilia from the Lennox Shop as well as local artist Maxwell Diamond's renditions of views of the Lennox Shops buildings, photographs from the H-WPL collection and examples of work from other local artists.

The late Bob Longworth, a cousin of Richard Lennox, created a miniature reproduction of the original 1928 building in its Christmas glory.

More information:

Battino, Joan. "Lennox Shop remembered in miniature," South Shore Record, December 31, 1998, p. 8.
Namee, M. Virginia.  "The Lennox Shop Story, 1928-1953," Giftwares, November 1953.
"The Way We Were: Lennox House,"  South Shore Record, (date unknown)

New York World's Fair 1964-65

One of the great events in the memories of baby boomers and their parents living in the metro New York area, the New York World's Fair opened to the public on April 22, 1964. 

The Unisphere

 The Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library is proud to share some of the photos in our collection, taken the late Max Hubacher, a local resident, during his many visits to the Fair.

The Unisphere, the most recognizable symbol of the Fair, was presented to the Fair by U.S. Steel in 1964.  Standing 140 feet tall, it was the World's Fair's most popular meeting place and is the centerpiece of the modern Flushing Meadow Corona Park in Queens.

 For an adult admission of $2.00 ($2.50 in the 1965 season), and a children's admission of $1.00, visitors could spend the entire day in the world of the future.  In 1964 color TV was in its infancy, computers were limited to large businesses, where they occupied entire rooms with less computing power than an average laptop.  The Fair gave visitors a glimpse of a future that was right around the corner, a world united by technology and trade -- and a universal love of strawberry-topped Belgian waffles!

 New York mayor Robert F. Wagner and a team led by master builder Robert Moses, chose Flushing Meadows Park, the site of the 1939 World's Fair, as the location for the exposition.  Many years before the Fairs, this reclaimed garbage dump had been referred to as "the city of ashes" in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925).  It was transformed into a pristine and usable public space, close to  transportation hubs and New York City's many attractions.  

The New York State Pavilion

At the height of the Cold War,  the theme "Peace Through Understanding" resonated with the public as America took on the challenges of the nuclear arms race, the Vietnam War and the future of space exploration.  Thirty-six foreign nations and twenty-one states sponsored pavilions  -- among the most celebrated were the the Vatican Pavilion, where Michelangelo's Pieta was displayed, the New York State Pavilion (above) with its rotating towers, and the Swiss Sky Ride (below).   

In the part of the fairgrounds closest to the Van Wyck Expressway, more than 45 pavilions  surrounded a pool around which was held a nightly fireworks show. With pavilions from Ford, DuPont and  General Electric Pavilion’s Progressland, the Industrial area was a showcase for corporate America. The Kodak Pavilion’s roof was designed like the surface of the moon, and Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen’s egg-shaped IBM Pavilion, where visitors sitting on grandstands were lifted swiftly into a theater. At the Bell System exhibit, visitors previewed touch-tone phone technology that was soon to replace the rotary dial.

Lake Amusement Area

Walt Disney Studios introduced "audio-animatronics," their new robotics technology, in the form of the Illinois Pavilion's Abraham Lincoln, the General Electric "Carousel of Progress," which showed the progress of the American family  through the technology of the Twentieth Century and the Pepsi-Cola Pavilion’s Unicef-Disney production of “It’s a Small World,” featuring animatronic dolls in their national costumes and a theme song, sung in several languages, destined to be lodged in the memories of all who attended.

The United States Pavilion

While it never became a financial success, over 51 million people visited the Fair over its two seasons.  And for this visitor, who first saw the spectacle as a wide-eyed twelve-year-old, the memories of the exhibits, the rides, the pageantry and the belief that all things might be possible are recollections almost as sweet as those waffles!

More Information:

• Charles McGrath. "The Fair to End All Fairs." The New York Times, April 18, 2014.
• Liz Robbins. "Recalling a Vision of the Future, The New York Times, April 18, 2014
• Axel Gerdau. "Think Back: the 1964 World's Fair." The New York Times, April 18, 2014.
• NYC's World's Fair turns 50." Newsday, April 19, 2014.
• 1964 World's Fair Tech predictions had some hits, misses (cbsnews.com)

• Unisphere: Flushing Meadow Park, Corona, Queens (NYC Parks Department)
• Walt Disney Family Museum: Look Closer: 1964 New York World's Fair
• Philip Johnson's New York State Pavilion (ArchDaily Classics)
• Overview of the 1964-65 World's Fair in Wikipedia.