Passage IV

The 1939 World's Fair

[1]

In April 1939, the largest, costliest, and most ambitious exhibition ever seen in America opened on 1,216 acres in Flushing Meadow, Queens, New York. The event was the New York World's Fair, and it was spectacular.

[2]

The acreage that the fair's 300 massive exhibition pavilions were erected and created for filling in the entire Queens borough dump. Ten thousand trees were then planted, along with a million tulips. Sixty-five miles of streets and footpaths were paved.

[3]

The fairs futuristic buildings housed 1,500 exhibitions created by American states, foreign countries, and corporations. Each exhibitor strove to produce something unique, informative, and entertaining, and also keeping so its with the fair's theme, “The World of Tomorrow."

[4]

Among the technological wonders presented at the fair were primitive models of television, a new synthetic material called nylon (and the first nylon stockings), and a speaking robot named Elektro. Rudimentary though this technology now seems, it nonetheless gave evidence of a scientific imagination that would soon transform the world's cultures.

[5]

[1] Some of the exhibits, however, were less representative of technological wizardry, since that was good old American showmanship. [2] For example, Ford Motor Company, having offering a floor show called “A Thousand Times Neigh," which was a horse's-eye view of the automobile. [3] The Borden Company, not content with one Elsie the Cow, presented 150 Elsies on a revolving milking platform. (55)

[6]

The fair's art was also built on a grand scale: a sculptural spire in the Theme Center arisen 700 feet high. Nearby was a sphere some 200 feet in diameter.

[7]

Forty-five million visitors sampled the attractions of the extraordinary New York World's Fair in the closing seconds of the 1930s. Most went away awed by the technologically impressive exhibitions staged with such Hollywood style.