World's Fair 50
Apr. 22nd, 2014 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penpusherThe New York World's Fair opened on this date in 1964. Though the TV series "Mad Men" surprisingly ignored it (or maybe not so surprisingly, as an agency as small as SCDP wouldn't have had anything to do with the heavyweight names that opened pavilions for the event), this was a big part of the vision that Robert Moses had for the city and really informed his future plans for where he saw the roads, highways and neighborhoods.
Robert Moses, if you didn't already know, was the head of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority: the agency through which all civil engineering projects in the city was run. Need a road built? Want permission to use public space for some edifice? Have a project involving any of the city's many parks? You had to go through Moses.
I have previously mentioned how Moses managed to lose New York two Major League Baseball teams because of his obstinate pig-headedness as he shrugged off the fact that the Dodgers and Giants packed up and left town. But when it came to the World's Fair, he pretty much got what he wanted.
The New York Mets, who had been playing in the dilapidated Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan, moved into their new digs in sparkling new Shea Stadium, just down the street from the Fair Grounds. And that orange and blue theme ran through the Fair as well, as even the #7 Subway sported those colors to take people from the city out to Queens for a trip to a future just waiting to happen!
Historians have criticized this fair for the severe amount of commercialism. And with nearly everything sponsored by some corporation, they were basically right. But by today's standards, it's business as usual.
Disney's "It's a Small World" made its debut at the fair and proved such a popular attraction that it was relocated to Disneyland after the fair ended.
Speaking of Disney, their "animatronic" robots helped with the General Electric "Carousel of Progress," where we followed the generations of one American Family as they marveled at the technology from the early days of the country to the future - 2000, when everyone wore space suits around the house. The song? "There's A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow". Written by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman, it was the soundtrack to the revolving and evolving carousel.
Here's Uncle Walt to give you a taste of the concept and the music of the GE Carousel!
Disney was all over the fair as the Disney characters from Disneyland turned up to wander the grounds and entertain guests.
There's only a few remnants of the World's Fair that have stayed for this half century: Of course the Unisphere, the iconic symbol of the fair, designed by Gilmore D. Clarke, looks as pristine today as it did when the fair opened.
And there was a heliport where the very well to do could chopper to the fair instead of schlepping on the IRT or buses like the rest of the schmos. That's now a restaurant with a pretty nice view of the New York Skyline.
But the 1964 World's Fair was an interesting curio and really a foreshadowing of things to come, just not what was expected. The blatant commercialism that has become so intertwined with the American story was fully in place here, well before we even had a Super Bowl. And our never-ending desire for "the Cool Stuff" was fully on display in the Ford and GM Pavilions.
Robert Moses, if you didn't already know, was the head of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority: the agency through which all civil engineering projects in the city was run. Need a road built? Want permission to use public space for some edifice? Have a project involving any of the city's many parks? You had to go through Moses.
I have previously mentioned how Moses managed to lose New York two Major League Baseball teams because of his obstinate pig-headedness as he shrugged off the fact that the Dodgers and Giants packed up and left town. But when it came to the World's Fair, he pretty much got what he wanted.
The New York Mets, who had been playing in the dilapidated Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan, moved into their new digs in sparkling new Shea Stadium, just down the street from the Fair Grounds. And that orange and blue theme ran through the Fair as well, as even the #7 Subway sported those colors to take people from the city out to Queens for a trip to a future just waiting to happen!
Historians have criticized this fair for the severe amount of commercialism. And with nearly everything sponsored by some corporation, they were basically right. But by today's standards, it's business as usual.
Disney's "It's a Small World" made its debut at the fair and proved such a popular attraction that it was relocated to Disneyland after the fair ended.
Speaking of Disney, their "animatronic" robots helped with the General Electric "Carousel of Progress," where we followed the generations of one American Family as they marveled at the technology from the early days of the country to the future - 2000, when everyone wore space suits around the house. The song? "There's A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow". Written by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman, it was the soundtrack to the revolving and evolving carousel.
Here's Uncle Walt to give you a taste of the concept and the music of the GE Carousel!
Disney was all over the fair as the Disney characters from Disneyland turned up to wander the grounds and entertain guests.
There's only a few remnants of the World's Fair that have stayed for this half century: Of course the Unisphere, the iconic symbol of the fair, designed by Gilmore D. Clarke, looks as pristine today as it did when the fair opened.
And there was a heliport where the very well to do could chopper to the fair instead of schlepping on the IRT or buses like the rest of the schmos. That's now a restaurant with a pretty nice view of the New York Skyline.
But the 1964 World's Fair was an interesting curio and really a foreshadowing of things to come, just not what was expected. The blatant commercialism that has become so intertwined with the American story was fully in place here, well before we even had a Super Bowl. And our never-ending desire for "the Cool Stuff" was fully on display in the Ford and GM Pavilions.
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no subject
Date: 2014-04-23 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-24 02:02 am (UTC)There were pavilions for various countries, but they were completely dwarfed (no Disney's Snow White reference intended!) by all of the commercial ones... like the White Owl Cigar pavilion that blew a perfect smoke ring out of its roof every minute or two, or the IBM pavilion, shaped like a giant egg.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-24 03:09 am (UTC)I've seen lots of photos of the ruins, always from tresspassing urbexers. So it's cool for me to see that it was open officially, to the public.
Here in Wisconsin, we have our very own relic of the fair:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/14542870@N03/8034639313/
no subject
Date: 2014-04-25 02:43 pm (UTC)It makes me wonder if there were other elements of the fair that were hauled off to other places and put to use in other ways?
no subject
Date: 2014-04-26 04:53 am (UTC)That's a good question.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-25 01:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-25 02:44 pm (UTC)