The New York "World's Fair" opened on April 21st, 1964, and again on April 22nd, 1965. (Wait, what? Two opening days? Read on, my friend.) The first thing you might wonder about this intro is the quotation marks that I have around "World's Fair." (There, I did it again). Yes, indeed, this was NOT an officially sanctioned World's Fair. After all, the Seattle World's Fair, or the Century 21 exposition, had just occurred in 1962. There is so much more to this story!

New York hosted an actual World's Fair back in 1939. It was very successful, and many had fond memories of the fair. A few men with those fond memories decided to do it again! After all, this area of Queens had yet to be redeveloped after the 1939 fair. The area was originally a wetland surrounding the Flushing River and then an ash dump in later years before becoming the fairgrounds. There was no money to redevelop the area into the proposed park after the '39 fair, so why not hold another fair to raise money for the future park? In itself, that was not a bad idea, but the execution left something to be desired.

The committee for the 1964 fair appointed an infamous New York career civil servant, Robert Moses, to be the President of the fair organization. Robert Moses had done many ostensibly good things for the city, such as Lincoln Center and luring the United Nations away from establishing themselves in Philadelphia. However, Moses had many other bad things to his name, such as building highways and bridges, which conveniently removed affordable housing for the lower class of the city, and demolishing Penn Station. Moses was an ill-tempered man who picked as many fights as he could along the way. However, he thought for sure that bringing back a World's Fair to New York would be an easy way to bring money to the coffers of New York and build the proposed park, the park that he was planning to name "Robert Moses Park". (Egotistical much?)

World's fairs are overseen by an international body called the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE). The BIE has strict terms about what can and cannot be a World's Fair, and Moses' designs for the fair went against many of the terms and conditions the BIE sets forth, such as not charging rent to nations exhibiting at the fair, the fair could only run for one six-month period and not the two that Moses has decided, and no country could have a fair within a decade window of another fair in the same country. Given that the BIE had already approved the Seattle expo, the proposed New York dates were too soon.

Not one to give up without a fight, Moses flew to Paris to meet with the BIE. He knew that the group sometimes bent their requirements a bit, and after all, no one (at least Moses) even knew how to pronounce "Seattle". The BIE declined Moses' plea, and Moses returned to the U.S. and gave an interview to a New York newspaper, where he bashed the BIE over their decision. Needless to say, that didn't sit very well with the BIE, and they forbade all international BIE countries from participating in the fair.

That was not the only group that Moses enraged throughout the life of the "World's Fair". (He continued to market it as such, even without BIE sanctions.) There were many other issues and hurdles (too many to write about here). Not surprisingly, while the fair saw decent attendance, it did not meet the 70 million forecast to enter the gates over the two years of the fair, and the fair ended up being a financial dud.

On the bright side, the park was finished after the fair was over, and there are still remnants of both the 1939 and 1964/65 fairs in the park. The good news is that the park is NOT named after Moses; it is "Flushing Meadows - Corona Park" today.

There is SO MUCH more to this wild story. I recommend watching the following video by Defunctland on YouTube, which covers all the sordid details!

OVER ON THE BLOG

Check it out - one of our blog posts is up and available on the website - this time covering the flooring material VCT or Vinyl Composition Tile. It's one of the least expensive ways to get a great mid-century look, particularly for a kitchen or bathroom, in your basement, or as the floor in your office (which is where I have mine).

READ IT HERE...