Marilyn sez, “Modern Mechanix photographed the 25 pages of this April 1965 Nat Geo story on the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Great photos of the General Motors Futurama exhibit, people riding a Ferris wheel made to look like a gigantic whitewall tire, attentive concertgoers at the New York State’s Tent of Tomorrow, which looked all elegant back then, with that gorgeous, huge (130×166 ft) terazzo floor Texaco road map of New York State. (Interestingly, in the U.S. Pavilion a display predicted the world population would hit 7 billion by 2000, but we’re still shy of that figure by some 300 million today). But the best part was the Westinghouse Time Capsule: which included ‘The Bible, a piece of heat shield from a space craft, a National Geographic Atlas of the World in microfilm, freeze-dried food, a bikini bathing suit, and a popular recording by the Beatles…’ Also a transistor radio, a computer memory unit, a heart valve, an electric toothbrush, and a package of birth control pills.
Some 7,000 visitors file through the RCA Pavilion each day to see themselves on color television (below, left) and hear a backstage briefing on the technological magic that splashes rainbows on their living-room screens. On the same site 26 years ago, RCA introduced black-and-white television to the United States. Official color TV center for the Fair, RCA telecasts news announcements, interviews with visiting dignitaries, highlights of other exhibits, and special events–more than 2,000 program hours from April to October. The pavilion also helped reunite families last year by showing lost children on some 200 television sets in buildings throughout the grounds. At the Dupont Pavilion, science joins showmanship (center). Here colorless liquids mixed in flasks shine with intense blue light in a demonstration of chemiluminescence–the same phenomenon that makes fireflies glow. In Dupont’s production, “Wonderful World of Chemistry,” live actors sing, dance, and talk with life-size motion-picture images on movable screens. One scene shows a live performer blowing out candles on a filmed birthday cake and spraying another actor with frosting. Eight different troupes, working simultaneously in two theaters, present the Dupont show 48 times daily.
(Thanks, Marilyn!)
See also:
18 hours of 64 World’s Fair audio!
Bell System film for 1964 World’s Fair
Giant road map from 1964 World’s Fair