GROUNDBREAKING AT THE

NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR 1964-1965

	Robert Moses, Fair president, Frederick R. Kappel, board chairman of A.T.&T., and Clifton W. Phalen, president of the New York Telephone Company, break ground at June 21 ceremony.

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Remarks by Frederick R. Kappel, board chairman of American Telephone and Telegraph Company, at the Bell Telephone System Exhibit groundbreaking ceremonies, New York World's Fair, Thursday, June 21, 1962.

Good morning:

It is a pleasure to be here today to break ground for the Bell System Exhibit Building for the forthcoming New York World's Fair. We are looking forward to April 1964 when this Flushing Meadow Park will be transformed into a wonderland of cultural and industrial exhibits, both national and international. Our plans call for an exhibit that will be truly representative of the Fair and of our communications business. It will illustrate how the Bell System through science and technology has expanded man's ability to communicate. It will be a story of communications services that have been developed to fit the needs and desires of the individual of industry and commerce, and of the Nation. The relationship to the Fair's main theme -- Peace Through Understanding -- will be clearly identified. We appreciate the importance of the location of this plot on which we are now standing. For this reason we have paid particular attention to the design of the Building as well as to make it suitable for our purposes. This picture (pull drape) will give you an idea of how it will look when it is finished. It has two main areas. This upper section will appear to be floating in air and will house an original presentation of human communications from early speech through the use of global and space networks. Visitors will be seated on a double row of moving chairs which will carry them through a sequence of theaters. We are mustering all the ingenuity and knowhow we can to make this an exciting an memorable experience.

There is an exhibit hall in the lower section actually appearing to be below ground. Visitors entering directly from the Ride or from the outside can walk through exhibit areas showing the development of communications systems and the science and technology on which they depend. They will illustrate how man communicates, the limitations of his abilities in this area and what the Bell System is doing to extend his capabilities. We will include some of our newest developments in sending voices and data over the most advanced communications channels. Here too we will show our vast land-based continental network with its world-wide and space-wide extensions in action. We will of course include displays and demonstrations of modern and future telephones and equipment for the home and office. A large number of the exhibits will invite the participation of the visitor and we feel sure that they will be exciting and satisfying. Our plans also include a tower that will transmit television directly from the Fair to local TV stations and to the networks. How this is done will be on view through the means of a television control center. Between now and the time the Fair opens we will continue to work hard to make the Bell System Exhibit one of the most entertaining, informative and intriguing shows on the grounds. We are looking forward to meeting you back here in 1964.

The Bell System Exhibit Building

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Remarks by Clifton W. Phalen, president of the New York Telephone Company, Thursday, June 21, 1962.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is a great pleasure for me to participate in this groundbreaking ceremony with so many of my own associates and with so many of the distinguished members of the World's Fair Corporation. This occasion, too, is an opportunity for me to salute the gentlemen who designed this structure, and those who are going to build it. I find it a very dramatic and a very exciting building, and I consider it fortunate that it is so, because, under the leadership of Commissioner Moses, this is going to be a very dramatic and a very exciting Fair. You are interested in what part the New York Telephone Company is going to play in it. Our first job is the operation of this exhibit. We are going to act as host to millions of people who will come to our Exhibit, and we're looking forward to showing them the latest developments in communications. This job is one that I think we're going to enjoy thoroughly. However, we have another job, one that we're right in the middle of now -- providing the communications for the Fair itself. We are determined that this World's Fair is going to have the best and most modern communications available anywhere in the world. For example, we are going to have about 10,000 telephones out here, we're going to have about 250,000,000 conductor feet of wire connecting these various telephones; included in the 10,000 are about 1700 public telephones and they are going to be the latest design. Perhaps later in the day, you'll see models of them.

We hope to have "slip-to-shore" telephone service in connection with the Marina which is over here toward Flushing Bay, so that anybody who brings a boat in there and moors it in one of the slips, will have a telephone right beside their boat and a telephone that will have some special features on it, including message waiting lights and other features that ordinary telephones don't have. We're also going to have a special setup for security and for emergencies. We're building a special central office building, a brand new building about a mile away from the Fair grounds, primarily to serve the Fair grounds. We're hoping that we can put in an electronic PBX, which is one of our latest developments, in our own Pavilion. And, as Mr. Kappel just mentioned, we're going to top the whole thing off with this microwave radio tower, which will transmit radio and television from the Fair to the outside world. We think it's going to be a great Fair and we're going to give it the communications service that it deserves. This is certainly a massive undertaking; it is one which is very important to industry in general, to our company, to our community and state, and to our Nation. Fortunately, it is in the very capable hands of Commissioner Moses and his associates. I think it's going to be a great success and we're going to do everything in our power to make it so. Thank you.

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Remarks of Robert Moses at the groundbreaking for the Bell System Exhibit at Flushing Meadow Thursday, June 21, 1962.

Congratulations to the Bell System on the beginning of a highly imaginative exhibit in the best traditions of American industry and big business. This exhibit will demonstrate to the world beyond question the achievements of private enterprise in a free society. It will mark the union of capital and labor, theoretical and applied science, awareness of the discoveries and inventions of a new universe, and willingness to compete in any market open to the talents without let or hindrance. The Fair is coming along well. We are interested in quality more than quantity, in genuine attractions rather than circus announcements and superlatives, in establishing confidence not by promises but by performance. These are the things which make America great.

Clifton W. Phalen, Robert Moses, and Frederick R. Kappel view Exhibit model.