When I hit NYC in a few weeks, I’d like to visit the site of the old 1964/65 New York World’s Fair. Does anyone know where it is? How to get there? What’s left?
It’s in Queens. Take the 7 to Shea Stadium. It’s in that vicinity, probably within walking distance. I know the Unisphere is still there (you see the spacecraft crash into it in MIB). But I don’t know how much of anything else is left.
But you can see the Tennis Center and Shea Stadium, anyway!
Well, let’s see. I was there for the Fair. I was 10. I remember “It’s A Small World” and the sphere and something about dinosaurs and the Carousel of Progress and the Pieta. I remember taking bus and train rides. That pretty much sums it up.
Yeah, I know - big help! 
Have fun!!
It’s in Flushing and it’s close to LaGuardia airport, too.
Okay … I’m IMing with Dave and he tells me he was there as well AND his future wife was. It makes me wonder how many others may have been there and if maybe we passed each other. I’ve changed the thread title accordingly.
I was there. My parents moved to California from NY in 1958. They went back to visit NY in 1964 to show off their first born, me. I was less than a year old so I have no memories of the fair but I am told that I enjoyed It’s a Small World. Mom still has the IASW album that she bought for me there.
Haj
Flushing Meadows Park. You can find it on maps of the city. The Unisphere is still there, along with the fountains and pools built for it. You can also see the former New York State Pavilion (that’s the one that looks like two flying saucers on pillars – they used it in the first Men in Black movie, where it really was two flying saucers on pillars. It had earlier been used in the Kurt Vonnegut movie Between Time and Timbuktu.) The Hall of Science was still there, the last time I checked. I’ll bet the New York City pavilion still is (it was built for the 1939 World’s Fair).
Check out the World’s Fair website. It’s among the links of the Freedomland site I once posted.
I think the panorama is down. Between the expansion of the tennis center and Shea a lot of room is gone. The Unisphere is there, as is the Hall. I don’t think you can go up in the towers anymore, but I may be wrong. I was there when I was little. Don’t remember much.
I was working for the Department of Agriculture that summer in Beltsville, MD. My parents and younger siblings went up to the fair. I joined them Friday night by riding a train to NYC. They were camping somewhere outside the city.
I think I remember the DuPont exhibit as I was gonna be a chemist. I also got to eat in an automat in the city for one last time. Would that have been the fair that had an exhibit with LIncoln recreated in a theater, giving a speech?
The NYC Panorama is most certainly still there, lurker – and anyone visiting the Flushing Meadow-Corona Park site ABSOLUTELY MUST see it!
The Panorama is a scale model of the five boroughs of of NYC currently housed in the Queens Museum of Art building (in the shadow of the Unisphere). It’s as big as two NBA basketball courts and contains a teensy-weensy version of EVERY building and structure in the Big Apple. And its lights glow during faux nighttime!
After a couple of decades of neglect it was fully updated and refurbished in the 1990’s. A must-see for every visitor and native, IMHO.
Went to the World’s Fair the summer between 4th and 5th grade… or was that between 5th and 6th?
- The Pieta was so beautiful. And “riding” on the moving walkway to see it was very cool.
- My folks bought us Chinese food. I think egg foo yung. I don’t think I was able to eat it; just too strange for me.
- Barefoot water skiing.
- The Superball (my big brother thinks it was actually introduced at the fair).
- It’s a Small World: the music was written specifically for the 1964-65 World’s Fair attraction, and was then used when the attraction was re-created at Disneyland and later Walt Disney World. Here’s a cite (sorry, can’t recall where I found this):
“It’s A Small World was the whimsical centerpiece of the UNICEF pavilion [at the 1964-65 World’s Fair]. With only nine months until the fair’s opening, Walt Disney was approached to design the pavilion. Even though his staff was working day and night on the other three fair shows, Walt accepted the challenge, and the Imagineers formulated what would come to be their most beloved and successful attraction. Richard and Robert Sherman, Academy Award© winners for their work on Mary Poppins, contributed to the now-famous anthem.”
A couple of other neat places my folks took us to on that trip:
We toured the Hershey factory, and they gave us those cool “chocolate in process” boxes, which contained cocoa beans, cocoa butter, something else, unsweetened chocolate, and finished chocolate.
We toured Kellogg’s and got, um, I forget, some colorful cereal shaped like Cheerios, but too sweet. Oh! My sister said they were Fruit Loop sundaes.
Here’s a site on it:
Here are postcards from the fair:
Which means it must’ve been 1964, the same year that I was there.
And you didn’t even let me know you were going. What good are you? 
[sub]samclem, this has come up before IIRC, but yes, you are oooooooooollllddd. ;)[/sub]
I went to the fair several times (it was only about two hours away by car). Wandered around on my own (I was 13) at least one time. Things I remember:
- The Equitable Life population clock.
- The Pieta. You rushed past it pretty damn fast, though.
- Tad’s Steaks. A steak for $1.19. (They’re still in business, though the price is around $8.99, and they’re pretty gristly.)
- The General Electric Carousel of Progress. It’s been rebuilt in Disney World but with one important difference: in the current version, the stage rotates. At the World’s Fair, the stage did not move; the audience did.
- Ford Pavillion. Mostly because you were riding in cars.
- Belgian Village. Belgian Waffles, plus the fact that the didn’t finish it until closing day 1964.
- Johnson’s Wax with “To Be Alive.”
Oh yeah - the Ford Pavillion! I have a glow-in-the-dark badge from that exhibit… at least I did for years. I used to keep it under my bedside lamp, and when I turned the light off, the badge glowed so bright!!
Ah, memories…
I’ve still got a lot of stuff from the Fair (I was there 3-4 times). I’ve got some of those Ford badges (they made them up with different names on them). I’ve also got:
– a Chrysler turbine car model from their pavilion
– “Carfucius says” tickets from Chrylser (probably not PC today)
– a mini-Bible from a bible institute exhibit
– a couple of Guides to the Fair
– a “Flintstones at the World’s Fair” comic book
– A plastic model of the Unisphere that was molded from plastic resin right in front of me
– A Sinclair Dinoland brontosaurus, also molded right in front of me
–Lots of postcards and brochures and freebies from the various places.
My sister danced at the New Jersey pavilion (with a lot of other dancers, of course) one day.
I placed temps there who helped with the restoration. It is way, way cool! I didn’t usually like client visits, but I thoroughly enjoyed that one. We got to actually stand on the exhibit.
I was at the original fair. I don’t remember it, however, because I was about 1 1/2 - 2 years old. I’ve always enjoyed seeing the “world” though. When I was a little kid, it meant we were almost at my maternal grandmother’s house after a long trip, plus it is very cool looking. The Hall of Science is pretty fun, too, if you are bringing a kid.
All in all, Flushing Meadow Park is worth a look even if it’s way out of Manhatten.
I was born in 1964, so I did not go to the fair itself. Where I come from, we do have a remnant of that Worlds Fair sitting next to Interstate 94.
I am, of course, referring to the “World’s Biggest Tire,” which started out as a Ferris Wheel at the 64/65 WF. After the fair, the Ferris Wheel seats were removed and the big U.S. Royal tire was moved to the side of I-94 in the Detroit suburb of Allen Park. It later became a Uniroyal when the company changed its name, and more recently a large nail was added to advertise the company’s “nail guard” tires.
As a 12-year-old growing up in a blue-collar part of The Bronx, I was absolutely fascinated by the World’s Fair. To my eyes, at that age, it was an astonishing place. I went with school groups a couple of times, and with my family a couple of times. But I also sneaked a few visits by myself - my mother thought I was too young to take the bus there by myself, so I would tell her I was going somewhere else and spend the day roaming the Fair. I probably went a half dozen times in all, and I visited almost every pavillion. My hero was this kid who ran away from home and spent several weeks living at the fair, buying food with the coins he fished out of the fountains.
I especially remember:
The General Motors Pavilion, with the World of the Future (1990):
Cities on the Moon! A resort under the Sea! And this:
Progress!
The audioanimatronic Dinosaurs at the Ford Pavilion, and the audioanimatronic Lincoln at the Illinois Pavilion.
The Coca-cola Pavilion, which featured re-created scenes from around the world, always with a bottle of Coke somewhere in the picture.
The NYC panorama.
The 17-ton cheese at the Wisconsin Pavilion
And the Fountain and Fireworks show at night.