This coming Monday — April 22 — marks the 60th anniversary of the opening of the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
To many folks today, world’s fairs are relics of the past. You may have heard of them. But like rotary phones, cassette tapes or (if you’re really young) dial-up modems, you can’t figure out how they worked, why they were important, or what their appeal was.
If you were a child of that era though — particularly if you grew up in the tri-state area — the New York World’s Fair may be one of your most powerful youthful memories.
(I know a few “06880” readers remember the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair. That one was way before my time.)
The ’64 World’s Fair included over 140 pavilions and 110 restaurants representing 80 nations, 24 U.S. states, and over 45 corporations. It covered 646 acres in Flushing Meadows, Queens.
When the Fair opened that April — just 2 months after the Beatles appeared on “Ed Sullivan” — America was racing headlong toward an optimistic future. We were putting men in space, cool cars in driveways and color TVs in every home. Business was booming.
A small portion of the large Fair.
Businesses had a big presence at the World’s Fair.
IBM — for whom many Westport dads worked — had a pavilion with a 500-seat grandstand, which pulled people upward into an egg-shaped theater designed by Eero Saarinen. A film shown on 9 screens described how computers think.
The IBM Pavilion.
Throughout the Fair corporations displayed mainframe computers, computer terminals with keyboards, teletype machines, punch cards and telephone modems. Sure, the computers were the size of freight trains. But this was the future!
General Motors offered a “Futurama”: a ride past scenery showing what life might (or would!) soon be like.
GM gave World’s Fair-goers a vision of the future.
Ford jumped the gun. They introduced the Mustang 5 days before the exhibition opened, on April 17, 1964. Their pavilion sent guests on a ride in cars like Fords, Mercurys and Lincolns, past scenes of dinosaurs and cavemen. We’ve come a long way, baby!
There were many other memorable experiences, like “It’s a Small World,” sponsored by Pepsi; an animatronic Abraham Lincoln at the Illinois pavilion; the Pieta from the Vatican; “exotic” foods like Belgian waffles.
Walt Disney created Pepsi’s “It’s a Small World” exhibit. “Voyagers” glided past (above) the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, Dutch windmills and tulips, and other scenes from 26 countries.
Like every Westport kid I knew, my family visited the World’s Fair many times.
Four Burr Farms Elementary School friends and I went together once. The mother who drove us let us loose for the entire day. “Let’s meet back here at 5 o’clock!” Mrs. Welker chirped.
We were 11 years old.
A 1964 World’s Fair children’s ticket was $1. That’s $9.85 in 2024 money. The official name had an apostrophe in “World’s” — though the ticket did not.
Another time, I saw New York Yankees announcer Mel Allen waiting in line, just like everyone else. I got his autograph, and felt like I had seen the president.
Today, little is left of the 1964 World’s Fair. The Unisphere — the 12-story model of the Earth that was its symbol (built on the foundation of the 1939 Fair’s Perisphere) — still stands in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, a landmark from the air as planes approach La Guardia Airport.
The Unisphere
The park is best known now for Citi Field and the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center (site of the US Open).
The New York Mets’ current home opened in 2009. It replaced Shea Stadium, the shiny new ballpark that opened on April 17, 1964 — like the Mustang, 5 days before the World’s Fair.
Shea Stadium was demolished in 2009, to make way for Citi Field parking.
What’s not gone are World’s Fair memories. I’ve offered a few above.
If you have any to share — of the 1964-65 New York one, the previous fair in 1939-40, or any other city that has hosted a World’s Fair, click “Comments” below.
I would say “see you at the fair.” But World’s Fairs just don’t seem to be a thing anymore.
(Friday Flashback is a weekly “06880” feature. If you enjoy it — or anything else on your hyper-local blog — please click here to support our work. Thank you!)
While I appreciate your retelling of this story, I saw a documentary that exposes the real truth — the World’s Fair was a cover for aliens landing. Why else would they hold it in Queens?
My most vivid memory of the 1964/65 Fair was the Friday before the weekend my parents and I were planning on going to the Fair for the first time. My teacher, at what was then called Weston Junior High, noticed red spots on my face and sent me to the nurse who, against my strong protestations, sent me home with German Measels, which put an end to our trip for that weekend. We ended up going at least three or four times over the two years that the Fair was there as well as several trips to Shea Stadium and I thoroughly enjoyed them all.
Thanks for the memories Dan. I was attending nearby St. John’s University at the time and worked as a Pinkerton Guard at the Fair in the afternoons/evenings. I was unarmed. 🙂
I was 7 or 8 years old when we went to the fair, I remember the Unisphere (and have a fuzzy photo somewhere of my mother, sister and I sitting in front of it on the wall). The only other thing I really remember about it was the It’s A Small World exhibit and that earworm song and the animatronic President Lincoln. Thanks for the trip down memory lane Dan.
I remember waiting in line to get into the Ford pavilion, where you rode around in a car with the radio being your speaker. My sister and mother got into the car previous to mine and I was in the back seat of the next ar. The people in the front seat had the radio tuned to Spanish. When we got to the subway station to return home, we learned that next door at Shea, Jim Bunning just pitched a perfect game.
My father worked for RCA (he was a TV producer at a time when few people owned sets but they couldn’t sell sets without programming) and worked the RCA pavilion at the 1939 fair, where television was first introduced. The only new product from the ’64 fair were Belgian waffles.
My dad also worked at RCA. He was in public relations. He got us a ride in the Goodyear blimp back then. We checked out the World’s Fair and the new Shea Stadium from the sky. The way they land it was cool. All the ground crew grab onto the dangling ropes!
I was four, and my brother was three. There was a cool machine at the Fair that would extrude(?) a variety of plastic dinosaur figurines on the spot. My little brother was a big dinosaur fan, and he wanted a figurine. My Dad slyly told Dave that he could have every dinosaur that he could name correctly. Yes, we went home that afternoon with ALL the dinosaurs…. Thanks for stirring up these truly prehistoric memories, Dan!
I had just moved to Manhattan for college and my roommate and I went to the fair almost nightly. Belgian waffles were an exotic treat at the time😄
Thank you for so many of these memories, Dan! The Belgian Waffles —yes! Epcot at Disney World is a miniature replica of the 1964-5 World’s Fair. I recognized it immediately.
Like everyone else I was there!
Thanks Dan. I was 17, living in fresh Meadows Queens. Had several friends working at the fair, including at Belgian waffles and the Swiss sky ride. So, went frequently and didn’t pay much. Great days.
In order to keep the crowds coming, fair organizers had many theme days. In the fascinating “Let’s Talk to Lucy” podcast (episode posted September 16, 2021), Lucille Ball describes her whirlwind day as the guest of honor at “Lucy Day at the World’s Fair.” All 80+ episodes of the podcast, which are assembled from Lucy’s time hosting a daily 10-minute radio show in 1964-65, are really fun and interesting, this one included.
My son-in-laws grandfather owned Chunky candy and had a mini factory at the 1964 World’s Fair. Six million people saw candy being made and automatically packaged without anyone touching the candy. One million candies were sold.
My college roommate Hal Baker from Richmond VA was visiting me in Ardsley NY in June 1964, and we spent a terrific day at the World’s Fair in Queens. Late in the day we found ourselves drinking draft beer (this back in the day when drinking alcohol was allowed at age 18 in NY State) in special commemorative glasses at the Schaefer Pavilion, wondering how to sneak our beer glasses with its commemorative lettering “Schaefer Center-New York World’s Fair 1964-65” through the carefully guarded exit. We tested out various ways to do this, including secreting under the arm or inside our socks, when finally Bake stood up with a full glass of Schaefer draft beer in hand and said, “Hey Bails, follow me.” Bake was almost never wrong back in those days, so I did, and we waltzed right out the main exit, sipping from our glasses, smiling pleasantly at the door guard, and went on our way. A year or two ago Bake, now living in Chattanooga messaged me to say a package was on the way. When it arrived, inside was his Schaefer souvenir, with the note “enclosed: one glass of audacity!” It now sits proudly on my bookshelf, a reminder of a great day with a great pal at the NY World’s Fair.
Michael, my family lived in FM til the spring of 1963 before moving to Westport. One of my favorite memories of going to the World’s Fair a year later was that we stopped to eat at an old haunt in Fresh Meadows—a delicatessen on Horace Harding whose name escapes me at the moment. So, it was good old-fashioned NY deli food not Belgian waffles that I associate with the 64-65 World’s Fair.
Dan, that’s a great story about Mel Allen I don’t recall hearing before.
The Long Island Railroad had what I thought was absolutely th worst slogan to promote their service during the Fair. They were “Your steel thruway to the World’s Fair Gateway”, Horrible! But I still remember it so I guess it worked.
i remember seeing the “phones of the future “ where you could see the person you were talking to . Imagine that 🤔
Amazing memories. I remember going often after school with my mother. We rode what must have been the #7 train, but all the trains stopping at the Fair were painted a specific color! Anyone else remember that?
The trains on the #7 line, all brand new, were light blue and white with black trim. They were made by then St. Louis Car Co., builder of most of the nations PCC streetcars from 1937-52 and I believe they were the last things ev er made by that company.
I remember standing in line to get on a revolving platform that circled passed a camera so you could see yourself on a black and white TV for about 15 seconds! And of course, the Belgium Waffles with ice-cream.
The World’s Fair is the reason my family moved to Westport from Florida in early 1964. My father was the manager of the Tampa/St. Petersburg exhibit in the Florida pavilion.
Don’t get me started…
Traffic getting to the Fair was usually very tedious. (Somehow, the elevated highways depicted in the GM “Futurama” never had any traffic jams at all!) Sinclair “Dino” gasoline had the fuel concession. They had devices which would custom injection-mold a green plastic dinosaur for you as a souvenir… Lines were everywhere, and my Dad hated waiting on lines, so it was a real challenge to get him to wait long enough to see any of the “good” rides… The “GE Carousel of Progress” was a favorite, complete with an “actual” — very tiny — thermonuclear explosion at the end!… I got a pen-pal at the Parker Pen pavilion (he wrote back only once!)… In the fall of 1965, the Norwalk Youth Symphony was invited to perform… at the “Tiparillo Band Pavilion”. We recycled the music from the previous Spring Concert — very few folks stopped to listen. Most of the food was disappointing (the sandwiches at the 7-up Sandwich Gardens were dry and inedible), but the Belgian Waffles were fantastic! Push-button phones and Color-TV were everywhere (harbingers of things soon to become commonplace in real life), but “Picture-Phones” did not become a “thing” until Zoom calls decades later!
A couple of other thoughts: The Main Entrance to the Fair survives at the end of a boardwalk connecting the No 7 subway line to Flushing Meadow Park — still used as the main access to the US Open Tennis Tournament… The Fair was a major cause of the failure of the Freedomland USA theme park in the Bronx, now the site of “Co-op City”… But the Fair itself was also a financial disaster, returning only about 20 cents to the dollar to investors (about half of the dismal return of the 1939-40 World’s Fair, which had the excuse of the onset of World War II).
I lived in Forest Hills. After school my best friend and I would sneak in under a hole in the fence to avoid the entrance fee. I remember seeing the Pieta vividly and saving up for those waffles. I recall these memories and more each time I travel past on the way to the airport. Thanks for that great article!
Thank you, thank you for these wonderful memories. It was such an amazing experience. I had grown up with photos and memories my parents shared often of the 1938 World’s Fair and I was so excited. It exceeded my wildest dreams.
I was ten. My dad (Win Elliot) was a spokesman for Schaefer Beer (“the one beer to have when you’re having more than one”). They had set up a very long bar area, they said it was a mile long…..I am sure it wasn’t. My dad who did play- by-play for the hockey Rangers at the time was telling stories to fans and pouring beers. One of ten kids he would rotate each of us for a day at the fair. He would let us loose and say meet me back at the bar at five. We would tour all day. Fondest memory, the Carousel of Progress (I think GE)! We went on that ride like five times. Great memories of times long past.
I went with college friends after my sophomore year. One friend’s college father worked for Pepsi and she got us in without waiting in the looooong line. We felt like queens. And the earworm of its theme is still with me…
A few years later, on the way home from grad school in Michigan, we stopped at Expo 67 in Montreal. No major memories but I remember being astounded to see a local dog being able to respond to commands in French!
I was four years old when we went to the fair. I vaguely remember It’s A Small World and for some reason I have a “pickle” pin from the fair – any idea what that was for?
My mom took us 3 there for the Belgian Waffles,1964,(the waffles, back then,a Bit different ,compared to ‘Downyflake’ frozen waffles for our breakfasts in Weston. I figured we’d then try the Belgian waffles Once At the Fair,no problem-then the week after, my mom then served us same ‘Begian waffles’!
My uncle, Lster Polakovback then an art & stage designer,NYC ,he then designed the Futurama exhibit ,I still have the name tag: ‘I have seen the Future.’ Great memories!
My mom, Marjorie Macrae Axthelm Scholly (Staples ’37), was one of the hostesses at the Vatican Pavilion “”guarding” the Pieta!
Going to that fair at 11 years old was life changing. I could see all sorts of possibilities for the future, and for MY future. How lucky we were to live but an hour away, able to visit and explore the fair repeatedly. Just another blessing from living in our beloved Westport. To think of all the people who never had that advantage makes me all the more grateful.
And I remember the 1939–1940 New York World’s Fair. I was there! And I recall the Frank Buck exhibit that included live monkeys. I still have my pennant from the fair.
I was also at the 1939-40 World’s Fair which was also in Queens. I was 9 or 10. It was about “the World of Tomorrow” by which they meant the year 2000 and there were lots of predictions of life in 2000. The one I remember was that every family would have their own airplane. Wow! How nice that didn’t happen!
My paternal grandfather, who owned the Cheese Shop at the train station, supplied the cheese at the Better Living Pavillion. He is buried at Mt Hebron cemetery overlooking Flushing Meadows. My maternal grandfather worked at the 39-40 Worlds Fair before moving to Westport. The 39 fair introduced a new concept in grocery shopping: the Super-Market!
Want to go back in time? I have information on every pavilion and more on my site: https://www.worldsfairphotos.com/nywf64/index.htm
I just loved the Fair. It led to my working for Disney, where I met my wife, so many, many happy memories.