The 1964/65 NY World's Fair

Cynical-C Blog had an entry on the World's Fair, which wasn't an official World's Fair, but when I was growing up, such details were of no consequence. I tried to comment on the entry there, but couldn't for some reason, so I thought I'd comment here.

I went to the fair a lot with my parents and sister, and once with my class. I loved the Belgian waffles and the rides -- yes, even "It's a Small World." What d'ya want? I was 11, for pete's sake. :) And there was the GE Theater of Tomorrow or whatever it was called. The theater revolved, not the stage and we got to see the same animatronic family in different time periods.

"There's a great, big, beautiful tomorrow,
Shining at the end of every day,
There's a great, big, beautiftul tomorrow,
and tomorrow's just a dream away.

Man has a dream, and that's the start.
He follows his dream with mind and heart,
and when it becomes a reality,
He uses it to benefit you and me.

There's a great, big, beautiful tomorrow...."

Well, you get the point. I might be off on a word or two. I typed that from memory. And I bet you thought I'd do the lyrics for "It's a Small World," which I also remember, all too well.

The fair was held here in Queens, NY, and I loved it. I grew up in Queens, so it was easy for us to drive over and we did, most weekends in the summer. It was like having an amusement park in your backyard. We had amusement parks, too, including the lamentably long gone Freedomland. But the World's Fair was a taste of the future, including printouts from an actual computer -- Univac, maybe; I can't find the printouts I had -- back when there were no personal computers and newfangled gadgets. It was weak on national exhibits because it wasn't officially sanctioned, but it was as good and fun and educational in its own way as Expo '67 was in its way (we took a family trip to Montreal for that one).

And if I'm recalling accurately, this guy is from the Sinclair exhibit. That's the unisphere in the background.

And damn, there I go, getting nostalgic here, something I never thought I'd do. I might end up posting some of my old writings one of these days, including some very bad poetry. You've been warned. heh