The 1964–1965 New York World's Fair was a world's fair that held over 140 pavilions and 110 restaurants representing 80 nations, 24 U.S. states, and over 45 corporations with the goal and the final result of building exhibits or attractions at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York City. The immense fair covered on half the park, with numerous pools or fountains, and an amusement park with rides near the lake. However, the fair did not receive official support or approval from the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE).
Hailing itself as a "universal and international" exposition, the fair's theme was "Peace Through Understanding", dedicated to "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe". American companies dominated the exposition as exhibitors. The theme was symbolized by a 12-story-high, stainless-steel model of the Earth called the Unisphere, built on the foundation of the Perisphere from the 1939 World's Fair. The fair ran for two six-month seasons, April 22 – October 18, 1964, and April 21 – October 17, 1965. Admission price for adults (13 and older) was $2.00 in 1964 ( after calculating for inflation). Admission in 1965 increased to $2.50 ( after calculating for inflation). In both years, children (2–12) admission cost $1.00 ( after calculating for inflation).
The fair is noted as a showcase of mid-twentieth-century American culture and technology. The nascent Space Age, with its vista of promise, was well represented. More than 51 million people attended the fair, though fewer than the hoped-for 70 million. It remains a touchstone for many American Baby Boomers who visited the optimistic exposition as children, before the turbulent years of the Vietnam War and many to be forthcoming cultural changes.
In many ways the fair symbolized a grand consumer show, covering many products then-produced in America for transportation, living, and consumer electronic needs in a way that would never be repeated at future world's fairs in North America. American manufacturers of pens, chemicals, computers, and automobiles had a major presence. This fair gave many attendees their first interaction with computer equipment. Corporations demonstrated the use of mainframe computers, computer terminals with keyboards and CRT displays, teletype machines, punch cards, and telephone modems in an era when computer equipment was kept in back offices away from the public, decades before the Internet and home computers were at everyone's disposal.
Site history
The selected site, Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in the borough of Queens, was originally a natural wetland straddling the Flushing River. Flushing had been a Dutch settlement, named after the city of Vlissingen (anglicized into "Flushing"). The site was then converted into the Corona Ash Dumps, which were featured prominently in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby as the "Valley of Ashes". The site was used for the 1939–1940 New York World's Fair, and at the conclusion of the fair, was used as a park.
Preceding these fairs was the 1853–1854 Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, located in the New York Crystal Palace at what is now Bryant Park in the New York City borough of Manhattan.
Beginnings
The 1964–1965 Fair was conceived by a group of New York businessmen who remembered their childhood experiences at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Thoughts of an economic boon to the city as the result of increased tourism was a major reason for holding another fair 25 years after the 1939–1940 extravaganza. Then-New York City mayor, Robert F. Wagner, Jr., commissioned Frederick Pittera, a producer of international fairs and exhibitions, and author of the history of International Fairs & Exhibitions for the Encyclopædia Britannica and Compton's Encyclopedia, to prepare the first feasibility studies for the 1964–1965 New York World's Fair. He was joined by Austrian architect Victor Gruen (creator of the shopping mall) in studies that eventually led the Eisenhower Commission to award the world's fair to New York City in competition with a number of American cities.
The year 1964 was nominally selected for the event to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the naming of New York, after King Charles II sent an English fleet to seize it from the Dutch in 1664. Prince James (the Duke of York) then renamed the former Dutch colony New Amsterdam as New York.