1000 MILLION DOLLAR WORLD FAIR

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30396, 21 March 1964, Page 5

1000 MILLION DOLLAR WORLD FAIR

A Look At The Future At New York

[By JOHN NEWNHAM in the “Sun-Herald," Sydney. Reprinted by arrangement.] 1000-million dollar “world of tomorrow,” a showcase extravaganza of man’s imagination and daring, is nearing completion on boggy swampland in suburban New York. It is the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, already the costliest and biggest and certain to be the most successful fair in history. A massive three-and-a-half year assault on the 646-acre grass and swamp site of Flushing Meadow by bulldozers and builders, artists and architects and contractors and consultants is almost over.

On April 22, tremendous 12,000-million candlepower shaft of light will stab miles into the sky; the world’s largest fountain will burst into a synchronised symphony of water patterns, colour, music and fireworks; a 610-bell carillon will trill “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”

The fair will be open, the first of an anticipated 70 million visitors clicking through the turnstiles. More than 200 pavilions represented 51 countries, hundreds of United States industries, two dozen States and the Federal Government will bathe in the suffused glow of multi-coloured lighting.

By closing night—October 17, 1965—the fun-seeking crowds will have left 120 million dollars behind them in admissions alone.

They will spend two or thre times as much within the gates and even more for food, lodging and enterainment in New York City itself. Australia is represented only once—on the unisphere a vast globe of lacy steel, 14 storeys high, and the gleaming physical symbol of the fair’s theme, “peace through understanding.” The fair is not an official one in the eyes of the Bureau of International Expositions, 30 member states of which boycotted the New York show. The bureau says one country can hold a world’s fair only once every 10 years. The last fair in the United States was only two and a half years ago, in Seattle. This was recognised, but the New York fair is not. This has not deterred many other nations, however. For millions, the fair will provide the opportunity to

“see the world without leaving home.” Foreign exhibits range from reproductions of Hong Kong’s Chinese pagoda and Thailand’s Temple of the Dawn to a whole Belgian village. There will be Tahitian dancers, Japanese geishas, Caribbean calypso singers and European gipsies. Security guards face a massive task in protecting such national treasures as Jordan’s Dead Sea scrolls, ancient jades from China, relics from the tombs in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, El Grecos and Picassos, from Spain and a Swiss atomic clock. Impressive Japan's pavilion, expected to be the most impressive of all foreign exhibits, will be a replica of a Japanese feudal castle, its walls sculptured in lava rock. Inside there will be Samisen and Koto concerts. The “House of Japan” ironically threatens to pose one of the greatest problems of the fair. Visitors will be asked to remove their shoes before venturing on to Tatami mats.

Somebody is going to be responsible for getting the right shoes back on the right people. Largest acreage of the site has been split between the three giants of the United

States auto industry—Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, Riding high on two succesive record sales years, General Motors is pouring 50 million dollars into its futuristic 10-storey entrance canopy building. Repeating its major attraction of the 1939 World Fair on the same site General Motors expects 70,000 persons a day will ride its 1700 ft long “futurama” ride.

The “futurama” trip includes an inspection of a resort hotel under the sea, a jungle where trees are cut by “death ray” laser beams, and a desert made to bloom by desalinated water. Ford will place visitors in 1946 convertible and move them along an electric “magic skyway” track from prehistoric times to a glistening city of tomorrow. Created by Walt Disney, the ride travels nearly half a mile past prehistoric beasts with intestines of transistors, magnetic tape and air pumps.

Cavemen will move about, grunt, wave, hunt animals and paint cave figures. So called time-tunnels will create the illusion that passengers are breaking through the sound and time barriers.

Ford’s pavilion, close to completion, is a glass enclosed rotunda-like structure, 235 feet in diameter, 56 feet high and surrounded by 60 glittering pylons, 100 feet high.