World's Fair World’s Fair
I started out researching the World’s Fair. As a little girl the World’s Fair was very cool. It was the summer of 1964, school was out, I was 9. My parents wanted us to have some culture whether we wanted it or not, along with Robert Koppel a New York lawyer who felt that another world’s fair was what American children needed to learn something about the world (I think he knew my mother,). In 1960 Koppel was replaced by a man named Robert Moses as the fair Corporation President. Moses decided that making the World’s Fair was best for improvements on the City, rather than the cultural and entertainment value they provided for my parents and me. He wanted to finish Flushing Meadow Park since the 1936 World’s Fair. He wanted to reuse the same roads and fountains and underground infrastructure. Moses got 35million and 6% bonds for park improvement from the city of New York. The fair corporation in addition received 30 million in advance ticket sales and prepayment of the rental space for the fair. The fair was 643 acres and had 175 pavilions. Even though the fair was built on the exiting 1936 fair grounds Moses had to move millions of yards of dirt lay hundreds of miles of pipe for gas ,water and electricity.
While the 1936 World’s fair theme was “Building a World of Tomorrow” Moses had other ideas. The idea of “Peace through Understanding “so that people had an idea of a world for lasting peace. The general public’s moral was on the down side from the depression and war was building. People had something to look forward to and it didn’t cost a lot of money.
I remember first seeing the unisphere. It was enormous to me as a little girl. 140 foot high and 9,000,000 pounds of steel. The World’s Fair made jobs for a lot of people.
Moses had a lot of influence with big corporations at the time .General Motors, Chrysler and Ford they all built beautiful pavilions for the fair. The fair was supposed to attract some 70million people over two seasons .Moses’ also felt that religion was left out of the 1936 fair so he invited religious groups to build pavilions .The Vatican agreed to display Michelangelo’s Pieta in their Pavilion . Robert Moses was very conservative in the recuting of the fairs display of entertainment. He didn’t want the fair to be like Coney Island ,which he was opposed to. He was opposed to the carnival side of entertainment. He relied on cultural oriented shows.” Wonder World” an aquacade and a Musical all closed within months.
After the first year it was apparent that the fair failed because of lack of patrons. So Robert Moses added some bars and discotheques but it didn’t help. The 1964 fair lost as much money as the 1936 fair. There was a rush in attendance in the final three weeks that brought the fair up to 51 million.
Some of the best Pavilions of the World’s fair were multimedia experiences films at the Johnson Wax Pavilion. Foreign Pavilions exposed people to the sites and food of Europe the Best was the Belgium Village. It contained a city hall, a huge beer hall, towns with a bridge and canal all made of stone. There were also state pavilions that Walt Disney helped design. New York State had a pavilion that was an observation tower that represented a flying saucer. Corporations such as Pepsi Cola had pavilions it was a tunnel of love water ride that had animated people in it,it was called “A Small World After All” which was a salute to UNICEF.
The fair also had may restaurants that were available. They featured food from all over the world. It was a new idea ,the idea of fast food. The 1964 World’s fair had may new idea’s The one I remember most was the “ Bel-Gem” waffle it was from the Belgium village but could be found all over the fair. It was a fat fluffy waffle with strawberries and topped with whipped cream and ice cream.
My memories of the fair are tucked away in a safe place until I read something about the fair and then like a rush its memories, taste and smells of a time that was futuristic plan for us to look forward too.
