NYC Salutes the Mercury Astronauts, March 1 1962

Official City Hall Plaza program for New York’s salute to the Project Mercury team, held eight days after John Glenn’s orbital flight.

The interior spread carries Mayor Robert F. Wagner’s proclamation declaring February 20, 1962 “Astronaut Day” in the city, citing Glenn’s three orbits of the earth aboard Friendship 7 and naming his fellow Mercury astronauts Alan B. Shepard, Jr. and Virgil I. Grissom, alongside the event program: the National Anthem performed by the United States First Army Band, an address by Wagner, remarks by Project Mercury director Robert R. Gilruth and by Glenn himself, and musical selections from the Department of Sanitation Band, broadcast over WNYC.