New York World's Fair revisited

It's 2009, and I feel fine! Happy New Year, everybody.

I don't know about you, but I welcome the occasional trip back to the 1964/65 New York World's Fair. Here are four nice photos for fellow fans:

First up is this sweet picture of the Bell System building, which housed (among other things) "The Ride of Communication" . "The upper story of the pavilion, which houses the ride, is a gigantic "floating wing" that rests on four pylons. Below is an exhibit hall devoted to the technology of communications. Nearby rises a 140-foot microwave tower which transmits TV shows originating at the Fair."


I love this picture of the Florida Water Ski Show: "In a show sponsored by the Florida Citrus Commission, teams of performers water ski behind fast boats, doing intricate acrobatics, formations and jumps, four times every day between noon and 6 p.m. A highlight of the Seattle Century 21 Exposition, the show is staged on a specially constructed, doughnut-shaped pool in the Amphitheater first used at the 1939/1940 Fair." Pretty cool that the pool was used at the legendary '39 fair!


I've always loved the egg-shaped IBM building, and until seeing this photo, never realized that it had "IBM" embossed all over it! "Beneath the (egg-shaped) theater, fairgoers stroll through a grove of rust-brown steel trees. There they may watch puppet shows and see experimental computers, including one which translates Russian technical data into simple English, and another that can recall headline events of any day during the last 100 years. Architect of the pavilion was the late Eero Saarinen; the display area was designed and the film was produced by Charles and Ray Eames.


The Chrysler pavilion had lots of cool things to see, among them "Bil (one "L"!) Baird's Marionettes". The "Show Go Round" was an elaborate musical. Mr. Baird had performed at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair as well (though apparently he did not perform at the 1939 fair)! According to Wikipedia, after he died in 1987, his children auctioned off his hundreds of puppets. One of them, "Oily Oilcan" from the Chicago Fair, fetched $11,000!


If you are interested in the Fair, then you must check out nywf64.com, it's an invaluable resource!