The controversial 1964 World’s Fair was the second held in New York and the largest held in the United States, showcasing mid-20th century American corporate culture at the expense of international participation.
Opening on April 22, 1964, the fair ran for two six-month seasons at the Flushing Meadows Park in the Borough of Queens, concluding on October 17, 1965. Occupying nearly a square mile of land, the fair was hailed by organizers as a “Universal and International” exposition with the theme “Peace Through Understanding” and dedicated to “Man’s Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe.” The theme was symbolized by a 12-story-high, stainless-steel model of the earth called the “Unisphere.” The nascent Space Age was well-covered by the exhibits and more than 51 million people attended the exposition, but this was far fewer than the projected goal of 70 million.
The fair was conceived by a group of New York businessmen who fondly remembered their childhood experiences at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The prospect of an economic boom in the city as a result of increased tourism was also a major reason for holding the extravaganza. To that end, the organizers hired Robert Moses as president of the corporation established to run the fair. Moses, a formidable figure in the city since the 1930s, was an experienced fund-raiser for vast public projects and, as chairman of the Triborough Bridge and Transit Authority, was responsible for construction of much of the city’s highway infrastructure and park system. In the mid-1930s Moses oversaw the conversion of a vast Queens garbage dump into Flushing Meadows Park for the earlier 1939 World’s Fair, an event that ultimately ended in financial ruin due to a lack of funds.
The 1964 expo was the first World’s Fair not endorsed by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), the international body headquartered in Paris that sanctions World’s Fairs. Seattle, Washington, already had been sanctioned to host the 1962 World’s Fair and, therefore, the organization would not endorse the New York expo. BIE rules stated that an international exposition could not be held more than once in any given country within a 10-year period. The lack of sanction by the BIE resulted in a lack of major international participation. In the end, only Spain and Vatican City hosted a major national presence at the fair, while other international participants such as Japan, Mexico, Austria, Denmark, Thailand, Greece, and Pakistan had more minor roles.
Flamenco dancers perform in front of the Unisphere steel globe at the World's Fair in New York, May 25, 1964. (Getty Images)
Some of the more popular international exhibits included the Vatican pavilion, where Michelangelo’s Pieta was displayed, and a recreation of a medieval Belgian village, where visitors were treated to a new taste sensation in the form of the “Bel-Gem Waffle,” a combination of waffle, strawberries, and whipped cream. Elsewhere, controversy broke out at the Jordanian pavilion, which displayed a mural emphasizing the plight of the Palestinian people.
At the 1939 World’s Fair, American industrial exhibitors played a major role by hosting huge, elaborate displays. Many of them returned in 1964 with even more extravagant versions of their earlier shows. The most notable and popular of these was General Motors Corporation’s Futurama exhibit, which consisted of a show in which visitors seated in moving armchairs glided past detailed scenery showing what life might be like in the near future. Other popular exhibits included DuPont’s musical review by composer Michael Brown called “The Wonderful World of Chemistry” and the noncommercial movie short presented by the S. C. Johnson Company (S. C. Johnson Wax) called “To Be Alive!” The film celebrated the joy of life found worldwide, in all cultures, and went on to win an Academy Award in 1966. The Westinghouse Corporation planted a time capsule next to one placed during the 1939 fair southwest of the Unisphere. A government-sponsored exhibit entitled “Challenge to Greatness” focused on President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society proposals and included a 15-minute ride through a filmed presentation of American history.
The 1964 World’s Fair is also remembered as the vehicle Walt Disney used to design and perfect the system of “audio-animatronics,” in which a combination of sound and computers controls the movement of lifelike robots to act out scenes. The Walt Disney Company was responsible for creating four shows at the fair, including the “It’s a Small World” attraction at the Pepsi pavilion and the General ElECTRlC-sponsored “Carousel of Progress,” where an audience seated in a revolving auditorium saw an audio-animatronics presentation of the progress of electricity in the home.
The fair came to a close embroiled in allegations of financial mismanagement. Controversy had plagued it during much of its two-year run, mainly due to Robert Moses’s inability to get along with the press. The fair teetered on bankruptcy due to a lack of public funds coupled with lower than expected attendance. Although the World’s Fair was eventually able to limp through the second season without having to declare bankruptcy because of emergency money provided by the city and a surge of attendance as the fair drew to a close, the financial crisis further ruined the image of the exposition and its president, Robert Moses.
Most of the pavilions constructed for the fair were demolished within six months following the event’s close.
However, a handful of pavilions survived, and some of them traveled great distances and found reuse. These include the Austria pavilion, which became a ski lodge in western New York; the pavilion of Spain, which became part of a Hilton Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri; and the S. C. Johnson disc-shaped theater that was reworked and became part of the S. C. Johnson Wax complex in Racine, Wisconsin, designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Some of the exhibits created by the Walt Disney Company were incorporated into Disneyland and later into Walt Disney World. Finally, Flushing Meadows Park continued to see heavy recreational use, and the paths and their names remained almost unchanged from the days of the fair. The Unisphere and the observatory towers became symbols of Queens and were included in moviES such as 1997’s Men in Black.
Ultimately, the 1964 World’s Fair was viewed fondly and with nostalgia by many, as it stressed a theme of peace and prosperity built upon the technological achievements of the time and occurred before massive societal changes. Thus, particularly for Americans of the baby boom generation who visited the fair as children, the fair represented a nostalgic time before the United States was rocked by change.
Further reading: Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (New York: Knopf, 1974); Robert W. Rydell, John E. Findling, and Kimberly D. Pelle, Fair America: World's Fairs in the United States (Washington: Smithsonian Books, 2000).
—Lance R. Eisenhower
World History
