1964 World's Fair

[pdogg]

It's the 50th anniversary of the '64-'65 World's Fair and also Shea Stadium.

 

Just hop on the 7 train to get there.

 

 

Fifty years ago, the iconic baby-boomer event introduced technology we take for granted today but was considered visionary at the time. Joseph Tirella, author of the new book Tomorrow-land: The 1964-65 World’s Fair and the Transformation of America, recounts the New York fair’s best innovations:

 

1. Disney’s Audio-Animatronics
Walt Disney hired an army of engineers—“Imagineers” he called them—to create new technologies. His Audio-Animatronic robots dazzled fairgoers at four Disney-created rides: “It’s a Small World After All (the Pepsi Pavilion); “The Magic Skyway” (the Ford Pavilion); “The Carousel of Progress” (GE Pavilion); and President Abraham Lincoln (the Illinois Pavilion). All would go on to live—and entertainment millions more—at his theme parks after the Fair.

 

2. Color TV
Television, originally in black and white, famously debuted at the early New York World’s Fair in 1939. Twenty-five years later Fairgoers got a glimpse of what their favorite TV stars or newscasters looked like in color.

 

3. Picturephone
Four decades before Skype brought video-chatting to the masses, the Bell Telephone Company debuted its Picturephone at the World’s Fair giving users a chance to see the person they were speaking with. The gadget didn’t catch on due to the small picture and hefty price tag but now in the 21^st century videoconferencing is an everyday occurrence.

 

4. Which classic American car was unveiled at the 1964 fair? The Ford Mustang
Disney magic met marketing genius at the Ford Pavilion where millions of visitors got a free ride in their latest model: the Ford Mustang. Fairgoers sat in a comfort as they rode along Disney’s Magic Skyway—a trip back to the Jurassic age (featuring Audio-Animatronics dinosaurs). The Mustang would go on to become of the best-selling cars in America.

 

5. A glimpse of the Space Age
Fairgoers saw a fifty-one-foot tall replica of the Saturn V Boattail rocket engine—the same stage-one propulsion jet that would launch the Apollo missions. NASA also sent a replica of the actual Lunar Excursion Module (or LEM) that would go on to land men on the moon nearly four years after the Fair closed.

 

6. The World Trade Center
Not a piece of technology per se, but a model of the Twin Towers—incredible feats of both design (courtesy of architect Minoru Yamasaki) and engineering—first debuted at the Port Authority Building. Initially derided by critics, their tragic end ensured the buildings would always have a permanent place in the skyline of America’s heart.

http://parade.condenast.com/248270/parade/7-technologies-that-debuted-at-the-1964-new-york-worlds-fair/

[xyzzy]

It's the 50th anniversary of the '64-'65 World's Fair and also Shea Stadium.

 

  Shea Stadium was demolished in 2008-2009. Where are the spaceships from Men in Black?

[pacman]

That takes me back. I can well remember the feeling of wonderment from the tales brought home by my father after he visited the Chicago World Fair. Amazing stories about the latest advances seemed like fairytales to a child who thought a transistor radio must be the limit of what was possible in miniature technology.

 

I recall vividly how we sat around the table as he described in detail all the wondrous things he saw. And we all went quiet as he told us in hushed tones of the most amazing product of all. A machine that could print out something that had been written in another town. It was a Fax machine & we all sat there struggling to grasp the concept of such a thing. The collective feeling of having seen the future among the family sitting at the table was almost palpable.

 

Afterwards we sacrificed a goat & three chickens & danced around the fire for hours.

[Guest JustSumGai]

one of my favorite childhood experiences. Belgian waffles...some strange japanese candy wrapped with clear plastic like stuff that dissolved in your mouth. LONG LINES for GM and others. Disney animitronics were great, and the Colke exhibit with the it's a small world theme. I believe many Tall Ships were there too. But hey, I was ten or eleven, maybe that was some other outting.

[JaiDee]

Saw these online tonight, pretty cool!

 

                

           http://mashable.com/2014/04/23/1964-new-york-worlds-fair-photos/