New York World's Fair Panoramas

Visitors at the 1964 New York World's Fair especially loved to take pictures from the observation tower at the New York State pavilion. At 226 feet high, it provided impressive panoramas of the spectacle below. This means that pictures from this vantage point, while cool, are pretty common. Which is why I am putting a bunch of them in one post. 

The New York State pavilion was located on the southern edge of the Fair; in this first shot, we are looking down, and slightly to the north. The Unisphere is just out of frame to our left (at the end of that grassy boulevard); among the pavilions we can see is the spiky-roofed African pavilion; and the pavilions of Sudan, Malaysia, Greece, Pakistan, and Morocco, among others.

Turning slightly to the east, we can see such sights as the shallow dome of General Electric's "Progressland", the red "umbrella" of the Traveller's Insurance building, the giant "egg" of IBM's pavilion, the conical roof of Guinea's pavilion and the wavy roof of "Sermons From Science".

Just for the hell of it, I decided to "photomerge" the previous two photos in Photoshop. The varying perspectives made for some wonkiness, but it still stitched together surprisingly well.

Continuing to turn toward the south east, we can see "Meadow Lake" and some of the Amusement Zone. To the right there is the tower (with the ball on top) for Florida's pavilion. Continuing to our left.... I've always loved the "swayback"roof of the AMF Monorail station. Next to it is the tent of the Continental Circus, and behind it is the massive Amphitheater. To the extreme left you can see "Meadow Lake Bridge" crossing the Long Island Expressway.

Pivoting back to our left a bit, we get a better look at Meadow Lake Bridge. In the lower right is the large "Bourbon Street" area, where you could hear jazz music and eat Louisiana cuisine. At the bottom of the photo is part of the multicolored roof of the New York State pavilion (see how it looks from the ground HERE). To our left we can see some of the buildings from the Belgian Village, and above that is more of the Amusement Zone, including the Aerial Tower Ride.

All of those blue tent-like roofs are part of the New Jersey pavilion. In the upper left, just a sliver of the New York City pavilion can be seen... a remnant from the 1939/40 Fair! The Amphitheater visible in the previous photo is also left over from that great Fair.

You can't have a bunch of photos of the '64 Fair without showing the Unisphere! I've seen a lot of spheres in my day, but none quite as uni as this one. The large square-ish building to its left is the United States pavilion, and just above that, Shea Stadium.

I hope you have enjoyed this panoramic tour of the 1964 New York World's Fair!