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May 05, 2005GingerKaren rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Read these words and try to imagine where you are: Futurama, Four Freedoms, Lagoon of Nations, Trylon and Perisphere, Democracity, Road of Tomorrow. Full of hope these words implied a better future. In fact you will be entering a place where they were ?Building the world of tomorrow?. Welcome to the 1939 worlds fair! Jammed between the Great Depression and the onset of WWII, it is hard to imagine these people would have any hope left! But they do, and in a way that we do not anymore. The population of the United States in 1940 was 131.4 million, NYC 7.38 million and where the fair was located it was 1.29 million. Many people made $10 a week. And it was a whopping 75 cents to get in at a time when the NY Times cost 3 cents. This book describes in great detail the work and the planning that went into one of the greatest worlds fairs ever. Blending in the memories of dozens of fair goers the story that is taken from these interviews, creates a page turning story. These interviews relate that many people, some who visited the fair 40 times or more, remember the fair for the rest of their lives and the wonders they encountered there. These include regular American commercial TV broadcast that started the day the fair opened (sets seen everywhere at the site), the fax machine, nylons, fluorescent lighting, long distance phone calls, free ways, and much more. In the end the Fair closed bankrupt. Today all we have are pictures, and memories and the site remains bereft of its potential, most of the fair just a distant memory.