1964/1965 New York World's Fair
The second World's Fair to be held at Flushing Meadows Park in the Borough of Queens, New York in the 20th century opened on April 21, 1964 for two, six-month seasons concluding on October 21, 1965.
Occupying nearly a square mile of parkland, it was the largest World's Fair ever to be held in the United States. Truly a “Universal and International” class exposition, it was not sanctioned by the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE) and is often overlooked by historians as an "official" World's Fair. The lack of BIE endorsement meant that many large European nations (Great Britain, France, Germany) as well as Canada and Australia chose not to participate in the Fair. Exhibiting nations were, for the most part, represented by tourism and industrial interests and not officially sanctioned by their governments.
Far more important to this exposition than international participation was extensive involvement of United States corporations as exhibitors. American industry spent many millions of dollars to create elaborate, crowd-pleasing exhibits. Critics charged that the heavy influence of industry gave the Fair a too-commercial atmosphere.
By the time the gates closed, more than 51 million people had attended the exposition, a respectable attendance for an international exposition but some 20% below the projected attendance of 70 million. Thus the Fair ended with huge losses and amid allegations of gross mismanagement.
Today the exposition is remembered as a cultural highlight of mid-twentieth century America. It represents an era best known as “The Space Age” when mankind took their first steps toward space exploration and it seemed that technology would provide the answers to all of the world’s problems. The exhibits at the Fair echoed this blind sense of optimism in the future that was prevalent in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Its architecture can be labeled “Populux” or “Googie” where flying saucer shapes, vast cantilevers and towering forms make up the majority of pavilion design.
HOW THE FAIR CAME TO BE
The Fair was conceived by a group of New York businessmen who fondly remembered their childhood experiences at the 1939/1940 New York World’s Fair and wanted to provide that same joy for their children and grandchildren. Thoughts of an economic boom to the city as the result of increased tourism was also a major reason for holding another fair a scant 25 years after the 1939 extravaganza.
World’s Fairs in the United States are not government financed, as they are in other nations. Organizers must turn to private financing and the sale of government-backed bonds to pay the huge costs to mount them. Because he was experienced in raising money for vast projects, the organizers turned to New York’s “Master Builder,” Robert Moses, to head the corporation established to run the Fair. Moses had been a formidable figure in the city since coming to power in the 1930s. He was responsible for the construction of much of the city’s modern infrastructure and, as Parks Commissioner for decades, the creation of much of the city’s park system.
Moses had overseen the conversion of a vast Queens (NY Borough) garbage dump in the mid-1930s to the glittering fairgrounds that hosted the 1939/1940 World’s Fair. Named Flushing Meadows Park, it was Moses’ grandest park scheme. Comprising some 1300 acres of land, and located in the geographical center of New York, Moses envisioned it as a major recreational playground for New Yorkers. However, the financial looses incurred by the 1939 Fair meant he did not have the available funds to complete work on the park once the 1939 Fair was over. He saw the 1964/1965 Fair as the vehicle to finish Flushing Meadows as New York’s greatest park.
In order to realize this dream and ensure profits, the Fair Corporation would have to maximize receipts. To do this, they made two decisions that would cause the Fair to come to blows with the Bureau of International Expositions, the international body headquartered in Paris that sanctions World's Fairs. They determined that in order to achieve an attendance of 70 million visitors (the number needed to ensure adequate gate receipts), the Fair would have to run for two years. BIE rules state that an exposition may only run for one, six-month period. Secondly, the Corporation decided to charge rent to exhibitors. This was a direct violation of BIE rules which state that no host may charge exhibitors rentals. In addition, Montreal, Canada, had been selected to host the Universal and International Exposition of 1967 (Expo67) and BIE rules state that only one Universal exposition may be held within a 10-year time span. Moses was undaunted by the BIE's rules when he journied to Paris to seek official approval for "his" Fair. When the BIE balked at New York's applicaition, Moses (used to having his way in New York) angered the members of the BIE by taking his case to the press and by publicly stating his disdain for their organization and their rules. Insulted, the BIE retaliated by taking the action of formally requesting their member nations not to participate in the New York Fair. In that way, the 1964/1965 New York World’s Fair became the only major World’s Fair in history to be held without BIE endorsement.
THE FAIR OF 1964-1965
As a result of the BIE action, major countries were absent from the Fair. The Fair Corporation did achieve major international representation from quite a large number of second-tier nations. New York in the middle of the twentieth century was at its zenith of world power and prestige. Many smaller countries saw it as an honor that they were able to construct a pavilion and host an exhibit at this Fair in the World’s most prestigious city. However, the absence of Canada, Australia and the major European nations and the Soviet Union did tarnish the image of the Fair. In the end, only Spain and Vatican City hosted a major national presence at the Fair. Other international participants included Japan, Mexico, Sweden, Denmark, Thailand, Philippines, Greece and Pakistan, to name a few. The Fair’s second most popular exhibit was the Vatican pavilion where Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta was displayed.
At the 1939/1940 World’s Fair, industrial exhibitors played a major role by hosting huge, elaborate exhibits. Many of them returned to the 1964/1965 with even more elaborate versions of the shows they presented 25 years earlier. The most notable of these was General Motors whose Futurama II, a show in which visitors seated in 3-abreat moving armchairs glided past detailed, miniature dioramas showing what life might be like in the “near-future.” It was the Fair’s most popular exhibit, attended by nearly 26 million people during the Fair’s two-year run.
Other popular exhibits included that of the IBM corporation, where a giant 500-seat grandstand was pushed by hydraulic rams high up into an ovoid-shaped rooftop theater where a 9-screen film showed the workings of computer logic. The Bell System hosted a 15-minute ride in moving armchairs that depicted the history of communications in dioramas and film. The United States presented a history of the country in a multi-screen presentation that was viewed by moving grandstand. As the grandstand followed a path through the pavilion, movie screens would slide past and rise up before the grandstands. DuPont presented a musical review by composer Michael Brown called “The Wonderful World of Chemistry.”
The Fair is also remembered as the vehicle Walt Disney used to design and perfect his system of “audio-animatronics” where a combination of sound and computers control the movement of life-like robots to act out scenes. The Fair saw the debut of Disney’s “It’s a Small World” attraction at the Pepsi-Cola pavilion where animated dolls and animals frolic in a spirit of international unity on the famed boat-ride around the world. General Electric sponsored the “Carousel of Progress” where an audience seated in a revolving auditorium saw an audio-animatronics presentation of the progress of electricity in the home. Ford Motor Company presented Disney’s “The Magic Skyway” featuring life-sized audio-animatronic dinosaurs and cavemen and at the Illinois pavilion where a life-like Abraham Lincoln recited his famous speeches in a show called “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.” Many of these exhibits were relocated to Disneyland following the Fair (and subsequently to other Disney Theme Parks) where they continued to delight audiences for years.
CONTROVERSIAL ENDING
Controversy plagued the Fair during its two-year run. Much of this was caused by Robert Moses’ inability to get along with the press. The result was a press that seemed to be unduly harsh on the Fair. A gross accounting error that came to light at the close of the 1964 season gave the press much to talk about.
The Fair had taken in millions of dollars in advance ticket sales. The receipts of these sales were booked entirely against the first season of the Fair. This made it appear that the Fair had plenty of operating cash up to and including the first season when, in fact, they were borrowing from the second season’s gate to pay the bills. Before and during the 1964 season, the Fair spent lavishly despite attendance that was considerably below expectations, simply because there was so much money in their coffers. By the end of the 1964 season, Moses and the press began to realize that there would soon not be enough money to pay the bills. And there would be millions of people attending in 1965 who had tickets to enter, but whose receipts had already been spent. The press, and soon the city of New York, began to demand accountability for what they considered gross mismanagement of the Fair. The Fair was eventually able to limp through the second season without having to declare bankruptcy because of emergency monies provided by the city, an increase in ticket prices and a surge in attendance as the Fair drew to a close.
EPILOGUE
Like its predecessor, the 1964/1965 New York World’s Fair lost money. It was embroiled in legal disputes with its creditors until 1970, when the books were finally closed. The city was left with a much improved Flushing Meadows Park following the Fair. At the center of the park stands the symbol of “Man’s Achievements on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe” – the Fair’s Unisphere symbol, a 12-story high open globe encircled by the orbitals of satellites depicting our earth of The Space Age.
The Fair is a distant memory now for most who were visitors. Those who were children at the time of the Fair are thinking of retirement today. After years of neglect, the Fair’s legacy structures at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park are being refurbished. New York, in recent years, has begun to realize how important that Fair was to our country’s and their city’s history and how much it represented an era to millions of Americans. It was a time when the possibilities of the future looked so bright and all its possibilities seemed to be just around the corner.