Defunctland: The History of the 1964 New York World's Fair

in the early 1960s two of the most powerful men in the world entered the final chapter of their prosperous careers they looked back on their accomplishments and were conflicted and they looked ahead to their legacies and were worried these two men were new york city planner robert moses and legendary filmmaker walt disney moses was despised by many his controversial and destructive housing strategies had made him a villain in the eyes of many new yorkers walt was beloved by many but he now worried that he had spent his life distracting humanity rather than contributing to it in a way both wanted what the other had and fittingly their solution was the same the 1964 new york world's fair the greatest fair ever built but to moses and walt it was merely a means to an end it was the gateway to their legacies [Music] [Applause] [Music] robert moses park he liked the name after all he was robert moses the potential eponymous city park was a dream that the city planner had ruminated on for decades in the mid-1930s when plans were drafted for the 1939 new york world's fair moses saw his first opportunity to make progress on his vision for the greatest city park in the world in queens there sat three miles of undeveloped marshland used mainly as a landfill known as flushing meadow or the corona dump it would be near impossible to raise the millions of dollars necessary to transform flushing meadow into a usable site if the goal was merely a city park however if moses used the grounds as the site for the world's fair the dump could receive the funds needed to develop it and the profits from the exposition could be used to transform the temporary fair into a permanent park moses convinced new york mayor fiorello laguardia to approve the queen's dump as the location for the 1939 world's fair and the first step toward robert moses park was underway through 1936 to the fair's opening in 1939 construction crews worked to transform a large portion of the filthy swampland into a gorgeous fairground having to divert a river filled with sewage and defeat an army of monster rats in order to do so [Music] the 1939 new york world's fair continued the thematic trend started by the 1933 century progress fair in chicago the overarching theme of humanity's progress was again at the forefront but this time the focus was on the future the fair was billed as the world of tomorrow and it featured experimental architecture and predictions of what the future may look like it was another landmark moment in the development of futurism and it put the promise of tomorrow in the minds of mainstream audiences walt disney would contribute to the 1939 new york world's fair but not to its futurism walt disney productions would create a mickey mouse short titled mickey's surprise party for nabisco's exhibit at the fair there would also be a special donald duck day held at the exposition walt himself would not visit the fair in new york but he would travel to the golden gate international exposition in san francisco that was held the same year where the nabisco short would also play at this time in the late 1930s walt was still focused on transforming the landscape of animation deep in production on pinocchio and fantasia his contributions to the fair would be minimal and predictable walt disney was a cartoonist not a futurist at least not yet the 1939 new york world's fair was beautiful and influential but it was not profitable moses had excitedly helped in its development on the condition that the first four million dollars of profits be used to build his park however despite 45 million visitors there were no profits and creditors only received a third of their initial investments back this was blamed in part on world war ii beginning within months of the fair's opening as well as mismanagement by the fair organizers while the exposition had certainly helped improve the infrastructure of flushing meadow the remains were far from a city park bankrupt exhibitors left their pavilions in tatters and there was no money to dismantle them moses was technically closer to his park but it appeared as though the dream was just as far away 20 years later little progress had been made but this was about to change in the summer of 1959 a group of prominent new yorkers were in the early stages of planning another new york world's fair to be held in 1964. the group approached moses to gauge his interest in serving as the fair's president the role was attractive to moses for multiple reasons first money moses was powerful but he was not wealthy his daughter jane had recently been diagnosed with cancer and he would not be able to afford the expensive treatments with the compensation that he received from the roles he held in the city the presidency of the fair on the other hand paid significantly more and he had already found a way to retain power within the city government even if he were forced to relinquish a few of his roles another reason moses considered the fair's presidency was power the president of the fair would be in charge of millions of both city and private funds and every contractor in the city business in the country and country in the world would have to go through him if they wanted to participate in the fair which early plans indicated would be the most ambitious to date the most important reason moses wanted to be president was of course robert moses park a project that was more important to him now than ever as he neared the end of his career his work in city planning was under immense scrutiny he had overseen mass evictions of low-income neighborhoods many of which housed predominantly african-american and puerto rican families to make way for road systems and wealthy developers moses had acquired unprecedented power by holding countless roles within the city none of which were elected positions and new yorkers had caught on to his tactics if he died then in 1959 he would certainly be remembered as the man that had destroyed new york he did not want his legacy to be in his housing projects he needed it to be in his park projects there was more class to public parks and if he were able to see through his dream of creating the greatest city park in the world a positive legacy would certainly be secured for all of these reasons moses accepted the role of the fair's presidency walt was also in a very different place than he had been in 1939 he had grown disinterested in animation in part due to the studio strike in 1941 he had then moved on to theme parks revolutionizing the industry with disneyland but by 1960 the park was more or less running itself and while he had plenty of ideas for future attractions his mind was focused on what would become of his empire after he was gone would the studio in the park continue to operate in his absence and more importantly how would he be remembered by all accounts he would be known as one of the greatest visionaries in entertainment of all time but walt wanted more he wanted to be remembered as a visionary period he wanted to help society and solve real world problems he wanted to do more than provide nostalgic escapism so he was planning a project of his own walt was dreaming of something far more ambitious than a city park but in order to pull it off he needed respect outside of entertainment he needed to prove himself on a world stage after accepting the role of the ferris presidency moses began planning the exposition but in reality he was planning his park moses set forth a series of measures to ensure that once the fair was over his elaborate park would be built first he focused nearly all of the fair's construction funds on landscaping infrastructure and anything else that would roll over into the park once the fair ended will there be anything lasting at this one oh yes indeed uh in the first place we'll have the uh several new buildings but over and above that we're going to finish flushing meadow park uh the landscaping will be here the trees will still be here uh about half the utilities have been put in on a permanent basis so they'll stay while it was typical of fair organizers to design and construct the fair's most prominent buildings moses spent most of his effort on the buildings that would remain in his park after the fair he delegated the majority of the structures to their respective sponsors forcing them to pay for their pavilion's construction costs and as a consolation allowing them control over their designs this was not normal as nearly every world's fair had a cohesive art style but if the sponsors were designing and constructing their pavilions independently of one another the exposition would surely have a random and incongruent appearance also atypical affairs moses charged sponsors rent for their pavilion spaces even more telling the rents he charged were heavily inflated moses also gave contractors monopolies and they charged pavilions astronomical rates for everything from maintenance to garbage pickup the most controversial of the measure is to ensure that robert moses park would be exactly to his liking was moses's rejection of a proposal to expand new york's mass transit lines to the fair this was an attempt to prevent minorities and the lower class from being able to visit his exposition and more importantly his park another consideration of clientele was moses's decision to remove the midway at the 1964 fair the midway was a tradition of world's fairs one that began at the 1893 colombian exposition and included in almost every fair sense midways thrived off of irreverent amusements cheap thrills and sex appeal and thus they were responsible for pulling large crowds through the fair's gates however moses detested this kind of entertainment and the people that enjoyed it he had tried to eradicate it on coney island and other new york boardwalks and he was not going to allow it at his fair when the news broke headlines read that little egypt and the hoochie coochie a popular show that was also a world's fair tradition from 1893 would be banned in a statement moses threatening the world with a bad time said quote we are admonished that our appeal must be somewhere below the adam's apple moses's crusade against the spicy below the neck area of the human body angered local perverts and general fun-havers alike after this it was misreported that the new dance craze the twist would not be allowed at the fair and in subsequent statements moses clarified that he would allow the dance still moses's midway restrictions meant that he would need an alternative form of entertainment to draw visitors it had been decided to run the fair for two seasons one in 1964 and another in 1965. the fair would need to attract 70 million visitors in order to pay back the city its creditors and still have enough funds left over for moses park this need for visitors and family-friendly amusement attractions motivated moses to pick up the phone and call walt disney [Music] moses set aside eight acres of space at the fair for a children's village and he reached out to walt in the hopes that he and his amusement design firm wed enterprises would design and construct it some articles suggested that moses even offered the space in the park permanently for an eastern disneyland walt was skeptical that his amusements would last after the fair was complete and turned down the project but moses desperately needing walt disney attractions at his fair suggested an alternative walt could design pavilions and attractions for major american companies walt was way ahead of him wed was holding preliminary meetings with multiple corporations about partnering on projects for the fair like moses walt had many reasons to participate in the exposition he saw it as an opportunity to develop new technology while having the companies foot the bill more importantly he wanted to gauge his attractions with east coast audiences that were thought to be more sophisticated than west coast audiences and of course walt had bigger plans but he was not prepared to discuss them yet waltz had plenty of ideas for fair pavilions most concepts that he had not been able to get off the ground at disneyland one was an attraction from a proposed annex to disneyland named edison square a few years prior general electric had reached out to disney interested in sponsoring an attraction at the park walt assigned john henge an imagineer who had done work on the original tomorrowland for disneyland to the project hench had recently seen a production of the stage play our town which featured a progression of scenes of two citizens of a small town during the turn of the century hench used this as the inspiration for an attraction to be named harnessing the lightning which had audiences walk from theater to theater to view the progress of electricity in four scenes set in 1898 1918 1958 and finally the future in lieu of actors each scene would feature animated figures with limited movements portraying the story's characters edison square would not come to fruition but walton not abandon the concept another potential attraction was the hall of presidents a show from another proposed disneyland annex liberty street the hall of presidents would feature all of the us presidents gathered together on stage depicted either by wax or animated figures in both attractions a major issue was the technology waltz and his imagineers have been toying with robotic animated figures since before disneyland even opened but they were not advanced enough to carry a show on their own most recently waltz had assembled a team of his most trusted imagineers including his wife's brother-in-law bill cottrell and his longtime collaborator ub iwerks waltz envisioned a china town for disneyland with a chinese restaurant featuring a robotic confucius eyeworks and catrell got to work on the figure and catrell reportedly named the technology animatronics from the words animation and electronics amazingly the figure worked and was able to speak for a short time before the mechanics caused its skin to rip off clearly the technology was not ready but it was closer and it was enough to keep walt dreaming now in 1960 he wanted to use the animatronic technology for his president show as well as a show with singing birds called the enchanted tiki room he tasked wed to start work on both projects the team began designing the singing birds and one of the u.s presidents walt's favorite abraham lincoln as walt had dinner with moses in august of 1960 the city planner practically begging him to contribute to the fair all of walt's plans were falling into place of all the companies with which he had discussed the fair three stood out coca-cola ge and ford he would pitch coca-cola the enchanted tiki room ge a new version of harnessing the lightning and ford a scaled-down hull of presidents starring abraham lincoln all three relied on one key factor whether or not the animatronics could be perfected in time or even at all with disney on a side and many countries lining up to sponsor pavilions moses only had one more group to convince the bureau of international expositions the bie was formed in 1928 for the purpose of organizing and regulating world's fairs the organization retroactively labeled many of the great fairs of history bie fares and put forth a series of requirements that any future fairs must follow over 100 countries became members and agreed to the bureau's rules for future expositions despite most of the world joining the organization the united states never ratified the treaty but still participated and benefited from it all in all a classic move from the united states moses flew to paris in late 1960 to get bie approval for the fair competing for the slot was a proposed exposition for seattle in 1962 named century 21. this was important because the bie did not approve two fares in the same country within 10 years of each other moses presented the fair assuming that new york was a shoe-in however the bie objected citing multiple stipulations that the new york fair would break first bie fares could only run for six months second bie fares could not charge rent to other countries and finally bie fares could not have a trade fair section which moses was planning moses did not take the objections well outraged that his proposal was not immediately approved the bie chose to give approval to the seattle fair instead seattle's fair planner ewan dingwall said quote it was the hardest sell ever undertaken by the pacific northwest people didn't even know how to pronounce seattle moses flew back to new york having lost the fight and worse to the people of cetl he was still intent on having his fare regardless of bie approval and he still hoped to convince the bie countries to participate this would not be impossible as the bie was known to be flexible on their stipulations but moses outraged at their rejection immediately went to the press insulting the organization describing them as quote three people living obscurely in a dumpy apartment in paris taken aback the bie called upon all of its members to boycott the new york fair and countries immediately began pulling out moses scrambled to save the exposition hoping to secure the backing of major cities or companies within the countries whose national governments would no longer participate the blunder with the bie would be just the start of moses and the fair's [Music] problems while moses was busy taking the world out of his world's fair waltz was working hard to ready the animatronic technology for the exposition's attractions audio animatronics right audio animatronics the first deal to be signed was with ford however they rejected the concept for the hull of president show the company was more interested in an attraction in which guests could ride in chauffeur-driven ford cars on a visit to the ford plant in michigan walton's imagineers discussed the attraction with the company's executives the dark ride to be named symphony of america would take guests on a test track and then on a journey through american landscapes from the florida everglades to the grand canyon of course this would mean more animatronics albeit simpler than those needed to animate lincoln while discussing the concepts walt explained to ford the technical issues that would arise from independently piloted vehicles as they toured the facility walt noticed a series of rollers transporting materials down an assembly line this gave him an idea what if ford cars could be pushed through the attraction with a similar series of wheels wed moved forward with the ride system but not with the proposed show ford did not like the concept for symphony of america the company believed that it was too close to their competitor chevrolet's marketing campaign see the usa in your chevrolet drive your chevrolet through the usa america's the greatest land of all the imagineers went back to the drawing board while waltz was preoccupied his passions did not lie in the ford pavilion they were squarely with harnessing the lightning and his lincoln ever since i was a small boy in illinois i've had a great personal admiration for abraham lincoln as a young boy walt disney had dressed as lincoln and delivered the gettysburg address his knowledge on the president had evolved little since but his childlike appreciation had not wavered walt's initial hall of presidents concept by 1961 was certainly out of reach due to both technology and funding limitations instead the new show would star lincoln alone the attraction was being referred to as one nation under god in june after ford rejected the idea walt flew to new york to pitch the show to moses moses loved it but he believed that it would be better supported at a government pavilion rather than a corporate one moses tried to convince the federal building to host the lincoln show exhausting his contacts within the federal government not deterred moses instructed walt to continue development on one nation under god and let him worry about securing government approval wald was happy to move forward and it was more clear than ever that lincoln needed to be an animatronic walt explained quote you can't have human beings working three or four hour shifts an uncharacteristically thoughtful sentiment before he added quote we can't afford to pay them or they'll make mistakes or somebody won't show up which was much more characteristic of walt the ge project was also progressing nicely the harnessing the lightning concept had developed into a new show that walt was calling the carousel of progress instead of audiences walking from room to room wed was designing a rotating theater that would move them between show scenes the show would star a simple family reacting to the progress of technology starting at the turn of the century and ending in the future the show would be part of a larger pavilion called progress land which would feature other exhibits such as a demonstration on nuclear fission and the corridor of mirrors the ge contract would be signed in september of 1961 and a budget of 10 million dollars was approved for the ride coca-cola decided not to sponsor the enchanted tiki room prompting walt to open the show at disneyland instead of taking it to the fair which considering the addition of the new ford ride and assuming moses could secure funding for lincoln still resulted in three disney attractions for the new york exposition [Music] heading into the spring of 1962 with less than two years remaining before the fair opened exhibitors and executives grew nervous the bie campaign had resulted in a cavalcade a bad press with moses's past controversies not helping the prospects of the fair moses was not distressed and he was offended at any indication in the press or otherwise that the fair would be anything but a spectacular success at the same time the 1962 seattle century 21 fair was beginning the more traditional fair would be praised for its architecture and especially its icon the towering space needle but moses was not worried his fare would be better and it would certainly be bigger in terms of acreage alone the 1964 new york world's fair would be nearly 10 times as big as seattle but it was having trouble filling that much space through a series of press conferences moses revealed new pavilions and sponsors slowly filling in the fares noticeably empty layout while he hoped the press would focus on the new additions they always focused on the lack of attractions overall which only angered moses moses became more rude toward members of the press as they wrote negatively about him and in retaliation the members of the press wrote negatively about him it was a vicious cycle that was only hurting the fair and moses's legacy but there were more concerning critics to worry about in early 1962 african-american activist groups threatened to picket the fair as no one on the fair committee was black and very few people of color had been hired by the labor unions moses claimed that he had no power over the labor unions a lie defensive moses asserted that he was a man that believed in merit not quotas a difficult position considering the proposed quota was one and there were 200 people on the committee in march of 1962 the federal government launched an investigation into the fair to determine why there was no african americans involved as if they couldn't already guess the following month moses announced that educator dr george h bennett would join the executive staff as its first black member as moses grew concerned over a potential protest of the fair more worried that white progressives would not show rather than actually attracting people of color in may of 1962 moses finally had good news to report france belgium britain west germany holland and italy all countries that the bie forced to boycott the fair would be represented at the exposition in some form whether by a private company or a city government this brought moses some good press how long it would last depended on how long moses could control his temper [Music] artist sketches are used as a guide for the finished figures you know brontosaurus has to eat a lot to feed his sixty thousand pound body so we'd better check this fellow out fast taking a break from the problems in new york moses flew to california to visit disney who gave him a tour of the studio he updated moses on the carousel progress as well as the ford pavilion which would now feature an attraction named ford's magic skyway that would take guests through the history of invention and end in a city of the future waltz also had a surprise for moses taking him into a special room in the studio walt asked moses if he would like to meet abraham lincoln the figure manually controlled by a team of imagineers turned to face moses extending his arm moses grabbed it and shook it it was a miracle lincoln was alive and moses needed him now more than ever after the meeting he desperately searched for the funding finding a potential partner in lincoln's home state of illinois who was to have a pavilion at the fair walt asked for six hundred thousand dollars to create lincoln far outside illinois's budget moses intent on having the president offered illinois secret discounts on construction and maintenance fees before finally offering them a 250 000 subsidy under the table to pay walt meanwhile walt was working on the carousel progress getting more invested with the show by the day he can uh oh read the newspaper how about showing how you read the newspaper what's the date of that thing 1890. in may of 1962 the story was approved but just two months later ge changed their minds not happy with the history angle walt was incensed shouting quote i spent my whole life telling stories with nostalgia and this is the way you communicate with people walt was so frustrated that he wanted out of the contract but it was too late finally in august a ge executive stood up for walt's vision and the original storyline was approved but this was not the end of the problems with ge executives would constantly show up uninvited to wed to view the show and give notes walt again outraged over the micromanagement lambasted the executives saying quote alright gentlemen what i want you to do is go down to the coral room and have a good lunch then i want you to go back to the burbank airport and fly back east where you came from and stay there until i've got something i want you to see despite the issues walt was in love with the show the imagineers viewed it as a long-form advertisement for ge but walt saw it as a breakthrough in american theater he was found working on the project late at night not sleeping improving story notes and critiquing renderings just as he had done in his prime with animation with snow white disney had changed the animation medium forever and with fantasia he had attempted to prove its merit as high art similarly disneyland had changed amusement parks forever but his world's fair attractions would prove wed's sophistication walt was constantly fighting wed's reputation as a builder of kitty rides when he approached moses about contributing a monorail line to the fair one that could then be integrated into the new york transit system moses turned him down due to the cost but many suspected that it was because walton wed had been pigeonholed as merely an amusement company this would need to change if walt's plans passed the fair would come to fruition but the fair pavilions were a necessary first step [Music] in early 1963 with walt deep in work on his three attractions wed received a call from pepsi cola the soda company was planning a six hundred thousand dollar pavilion with 94 000 square feet of exhibit space to benefit the united nations children's fund pepsi had a huge problem with a little over 13 months left before the fair opened they had no plans for the space hearing that wed was developing attractions for the fair pepsi was hoping that walt would build another for their pavilion admiral joe fowler who had been with disney since the construction of disneyland was the one to answer the phone explaining that wed was already busy with three attractions and that there was not enough time fowler turned pepsi down walt soon learned of this and confronted fowler saying quote i'll make those decisions as if to prove a point he then told a staff member to call pepsi and tell them that they would do it disney was now working on four shows for the world's fair in the spirit of unicef walt told wed that he was envisioning a small boat ride with animated dolls representing the world's countries while singing their respective national anthems the result was an incoherent mess while pivoted to one song sung in the children's respective languages to be written by the in-house songwriting duo the sherman brothers who were also lending their talents to the carousel progress pending its theme it's a great big beautiful tomorrow the sherman brothers theme for the boat ride would be named it's a small world which would also become the name for the attraction after the initial design work was not to walt's liking he assigned mary blair a disney artist known for her unique design style and brilliant color work to assist on the project another imagineer raleigh crump was assigned to create a whimsical kinetic marquee that would be named the tower of the four winds the one man under god show eventually renamed to great moments with mr lincoln was coming along incredibly the figure certainly looked like the man to start with we were fortunate in being able to secure this life mask of the 16th president how do we get this bling this is actually a copy of an original life mask by the sculptor leonard volk in chicago in 1860 before lincoln was president before lincoln was president before he had a beard that's right the harder aspect was the voice the lincoln scholars consulting on the project wanted the actor that had portrayed the president in the 1940 film abraham lincoln in illinois but walt wanted royal dano who he had seen play lincoln on the omnibus tv series dana was invited to wed to give his lines after dana read them walt jumped out of his seat shouting at him quote no no no you don't understand do it again after a second attempt walt gave the same reaction then a third walt still not happy with the results instructed his team to sing the battle him of the republic before having dano try a fourth time dano now uncertain of his performance and tired gave a much different read and walt was thrilled he wanted a troubled lincoln a lincoln that had seen the horrors of the war and instead of just telling dano that's what he wanted he decided to break him himself while the voice of lincoln was broken so was the robot it was not able to perform consistently and after a poor performance to fair organizers waltz called upon up eyeworks to help fix it by april of 1963 it was performing better but improvements still needed to be made illinois officials were impressed with the figure when they visited although some had hesitancy about the nature of reanimating a dead man walt assured them that it was being done with the utmost respect and care and their nerves were eased the theme of moses's fair was peace through understanding and given the massive amount of controversy and hostility coming from the city planner the irony was not lost on anyone the bie the press and civil rights groups all of which continued to criticize moses and the fair were soon joined by art critics noticing that moses's decision to allow independent pavilion design had in fact resulted in a fair that was at best uninspired and at worst ugly the icon of the 1939 new york world's fair the trial on in perisphere was impressive futuristic and inspiring the 1964 fair would feature the unisphere as its icon depicting the earth in stainless steel art critics dismissed the work as trite and unimaginative from moses's perspective everyone was against him as the fair prepared to open in april of 1964 reports emerged that the construction would not be completed in time these reports were correct but moses would not tolerate them assuring everyone that the fair would be completely finished by opening day which it would not be moses's insistence on the fair's full completion kept the press engaged on the matter and they consistently reported on any delays or issues with construction the exhibitors at the fair were also fed up with moses and his exploitation spain the only nation to defy the bis boycott was so upset at the unreasonable garbage collection fees that the organizers threatened to dump their trash into the unisphere pool things were not going well moses still needed the enormous turnout of 70 million people the fair had cost 30 million dollars to build and it cost an additional 300 000 every day to operate and in the end he still needed 29 million dollars in profit to build his dream park this meant that he would need an average of 220 000 visitors every day this was the number that his creditors and the press clung to waiting in anticipation for april to see if he could meet it in the weeks leading up to the fair's opening reports emerged that a large stalin protest was being planned for opening day by civil rights groups the 1963 march on washington had occurred less than a year prior and the civil rights act of 1964 had yet to pass the senate the group saw the fair as a symbol of hypocrisy here were governments corporations and elites holding hands predicting utopia while just outside people were fighting to actually achieve it of course the optimism via corporation was an old trick famously employed in 1933 to ensure that when the public thought of the future they thought of american industry 30 years later the gimmick was proving ineffective as more of the public was becoming enlightened to the injustices around them james farmer the national director of the congress of racial equality stated that the stalin's purpose was to quote spotlight the issue between the glitter and fantasy of the world's fair and the real world of discrimination this frustrated moses but he was smart enough to keep quiet on the issue for once adlai stevenson former governor of illinois promoting the pavilion was equally outraged after all they had a robot lincoln to protect quote civil wrongs don't make civil rights stephenson told the press adding that lincoln would be ashamed as he had a quote vigorous insistence on obedience to the law lincoln the first president to suspend habeas corpus was not available for comment mostly due to the fact that he still wasn't working on april 20th two days before the fair's opening the illinois governor and other officials came to the pavilion to view lincoln walt anxious about the animatronics performance paced throughout the other fair pavilions before finally arriving at the show he was right to be concerned the imagineers could not get the animatronic to work walt broke the news to the officials and a few of the imagineers tired and disappointed cried over the failure while lincoln was not ready the other pavilions were it's a small world ford magic skyway and even walt's favorite the carousel of progress worked incredibly and he was proud of the work still walt needed east coast audiences to love it too moses needed audiences to simply arrive 220 000 people a day this number still loomed as moses and officials threw up in the gates of the fair on april 22nd 1964. [Music] it's the biggest they say the most beautiful the most awe-inspiring the most colorful the most spectacular event of this era the new york world's fair it mixes the glamour of some of our alphabetical corporations with the beauty and charm of a hundred different countries over 140 pavilions were featured guests could ride the tire tire-shaped us royal ferris wheel communicate via picture phone travel via suspended monorails visit sinclair's dinoland area and of course experience the multiple disney pavilions [Music] as promised the civil rights groups had created a successful stalin on opening day and to make matters worse for moses the weather was miserable the final attendance 49 642 visitors far short of the 22 000 people that moses had needed the city planner blamed the opening day attendance on the protests and the weather but the following day with no stalling and perfect weather only 88 000 visitors showed during the first weekend only 160 thousand guests per day visited and the following week daily attendance fell as low as 45 thousand it was unclear why the crowds weren't coming there was so many possible reasons but moses was confident may would bring better weather and more crowds he assured the public he hoped he was correct because everything was on the line on april 30th 1964 lincoln was finally ready to open but he was only able to deliver his speech a total of seven times which was technically six more times than the real lincoln had but it was clearly not enough imagineer mark davis questioned quote do you suppose god is mad at walt for creating man in his own image the imagineers continued to tweak the animatronic and it was soon working reliably enough to perform may saw better attendance than april but it was still not good enough moses changed his excuse from weather to the children who would be in school until july while he was never short on deflections he was short on time july did not bring the necessary crowds nor did august or september the 1964 season of the fair ended and not a single day saw 220 000 people by september the fair should have earned close to 90 million dollars it had barely earned 25 million accounting for construction and operating costs the fair ran a deficit of 17.5 million dollars for the 1964 season the other fair executives knew better than to bring up the financial issues around moses but it was soon revealed that the situation was much worse than anyone knew or could have possibly imagined tickets are on sale now all over the country an accounting error resulted in all of the fair's advanced ticket sales being credited to the first season even though many of them had not been redeemed this resulted in the first season's finances looking better than they had been more critically the second season would now see 15 million visitors that had pre-paid and as far as the books were concerned these visitors were entering the fair for free now moses had to be informed george spargo chairman of the affairs finance committee volunteered to break the news to him moses a longtime friend of spargo fired him immediately he then brought in the accountant responsible for the error a man in his 60s and derided him reportedly for hours days later the man would suffer a heart attack undergo open-heart surgery and die shortly thereafter the press soon found out about the error and while moses stayed positive his denials and excuses no longer held any weight in order to get visitors through the door for the second season moses searched for additional attractions he also compromised many of his ideals allowing bars and dancing girls to move in a vote of confidence was held by the fair committee to determine whether moses would retain the presidency for the second season no one was brave enough to vote against him even though there was immense pressure from creditors and certain city officials to remove him the 1965 season progressed similarly to 1964. before the season started it was clear that there would be no profit for robert moses park and as the summer of 1965 did not see spectacular crowds it was also apparent that the fair would not be able to pay back the city or the creditors moses's dream was lost and his legacy solidified but amazingly in october of 1965 the final month of the fair the crowds arrived afraid to miss out on the great fair audiences swarmed the exposition at the very end on the final weekends 500 000 people per day poured in the fair ended with its most successful month by far it was not enough to save the fare which ended up losing millions but because of the end crowds moses now had 11.6 million dollars cash on hand he could use this money to either pay back his creditors or continue development on his park at an event with the investors present moses told them to their face his decision he was going to build the park the creditors were outraged but they could do very little as planned the resulting park retained much of the layout of the 1964 fair which itself had used a portion of the layout from the 1939 fair structures from the exposition remained and were integrated into the park notably the unisphere and the new york state pavilion it was a grand park but nowhere near what moses had originally envisioned worse it would not bear his name and it would not be his legacy instead his aggressive and unprofessional conduct during the fair would become a key part of the legacy he was trying to avoid robert moses would be remembered by many as a racist power-hungry man that displaced the poor to give to the rich there was no avoiding the image especially after the highly detailed and critical 1974 moses biography the power broker by robert carro was released moses lived long enough to see the public autopsy of his career and in his old age he tried to defend himself and his policies to no avail moses would pass in 1981 at the age of 92. the 1964 new york world's fair had been much more successful for walt disney 91 of the 51 million fair visitors had experienced at least one of disney's four attractions and reviews had been spectacular the east coast was not too sophisticated for disney and through the attractions walt himself had proved that his team was more capable than many had believed walt moved into small world and the carousel of progress to disneyland after the fair great moments with mr lincoln had already been cloned for the park during the fair second season he wanted to move forward magic skyway as well before declined waltz instead took the dinosaur animatronics and placed them in a diorama along the disneyland railroad waltz also recruited the fair's vice president major general william joe potter to work with walt on his post-fair plans unlike moses the fair had helped wall get closer to his big project the plans for which were now on display as disneyland guests rode the carousel of progress rotating past its final scene they were invited to rise from their seats and walk not out of the doors behind them but forward onto a moving walkway this walkway took guests to the second floor of the attraction where they would find a massive model of a futuristic city it had been called many things project future progress city and most recently epcot the experimental prototype community of tomorrow this was the project that walt had been dreaming about for years this would be his contribution to society this would be walt disney's legacy there was just one problem walt disney was dead [Music] you

Channel: Defunctland

Views: 643,465

Rating: 4.9281301 out of 5

Keywords: defunctland, kevin perjurer, theme park, extinct, abandoned, defunct, history, disney, disneyland, disney world, previous, attractions, on ride, lights on, robert moses, 1964 new york world's fair history, walt disney history, walt disney world's fair, it's a small world history, great moments with mr. lincoln history, carousel of progress history, ford magic skyway history, it's a small world after all walt disney, walt disney new york fair, new york disneyland, new york disney world

Id: FTRKG_ovjsA

Length: 41min 3sec (2463 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 09 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/DapperDandy]

This was very informative and also gave great history and Disney rides we love!