A Look Back: The World’s Fair

Flushing Meadows Park was the site of not one but two World’s Fairs, the 1964 one that many readers undoubtedly remember, and the 1939 fair that most probably do not. That fair  — whose symbol was the Trylon and Perisphere, seen at left — is the subject of the collage taken from a 1939 issue of The Spectator. Among the wonders that first were revealed at the ‘39 fair — whose official motto was “The World of Tomorrow” — was nylon fabric. The View-Master was also introduced at the fair, where early television sets were given wider exposure. Like the ‘64 fair, the ‘39 fair’s official colors were blue and orange.