If you're among the 70 million Americans who will attend the 1964-5 World's Fair, take a good look around. Its global wares and wonders go on view at New York City's Flushing Meadow Park next April 22. There will be an implausible array of futuristic structures sheltering exhibitions of the earth's most dynamic skills, thrilling talents and irreplaceable treasures of painting and sculpture.

And the like of it may never be seen again.

The photos on this page depict the pre-opening fair scenes. Spikes, slabs, discs, bars, cones and a hundred other shapes that form parts of exhibit pavilions poke skyward. Twelve thousand workers scurry to finish nearly 150 buildings and fill them with stunning displays or service facilities. Some 60 countries, 24 states and scores of industrial firms will strive to see that the world long remembers what they do here. In nearly every case, these figures surpass those of any previous exposition.

Officials are calling it history's first $1 billion fair. And few of them can envision its being duplicated in the foreseeable future because:

• It is unlikely that such an immense total investment could be attracted a second time. City, state and federal governments alone are spending nearly $175 million for various purposes. Exhibitors will add half a billion. Fair Controller Erwin Witt says the total expenditures is more than twice that of any previous world show.
• It's hard to imagine a fair of such magnitude anywhere but New York City, with its concentrations of population, wealth and transportation links. And the fair's big convenient site won't be available after 1965. Profits will be used for full development of Flushing Meadow Park.
• Only a man like Fair President Robert Moses, master builder of bridges, expressways, power dams and parks, could cause such a spectacle to rise from bare ground. And only a Moses could attract such a brilliant cabinet of generals, diplomats, engineers, admnistrators and salesmen, each knowing his job will evaporate after 1965.
• The immensity of this fair and the persuasiveness of its key representatives alone lured priceless cultural and historical possessions from the Vatican, famous museums and national archives.

An effort to organize a world's fair for opening in 1967 at Montreal already has encountered serious difficulties in such major areas as site location and top management.

"It will never be done again," in the unequivocal opinion of doughty William E. Potter, the fair's executive vice-president and construction expediter, a retired major general of the Army Engineers.

Ingenuity of fair exhibits is expemplified by these dinosaurs, authentically reproduced for Sinclair and already in their places.

"Money-wise, I've done bigger things," declares Potter, who's a brisk 58. "But I've never had a project of this great size on such a small piece of land, and with no delay permitted except for one caused by an act of God."

To make it truly a world event and draw in the new high of 60 nations (the earlier New York event drew 50 in 1939, fewer in its second year), Charles Poletti, one-time New York governor who's the fair vice-president in charge of International Affairs and Exhibits, has had awesome obstacles to surmount.

"Let's not forget we are asking countries to come here, to pay rent for land and put up their own buidlings," Poletti exhorts. "What international fairs have ever done this?

"With many of the foreign exhibitors," Poletti relates, "it's been push and push. We had to fight to get the original Mozart manuscripts from Vienna, the Dead Sea Scrolls from Jordan, great paintings from the Prado."

To sign up some 60 nations to exhibit in 45 pavilions, Poletti made several trips around the world.

GM, Ford, Chrysler and other industrial giants are striving to outdo not only one another but all previous world's fair exhibits. Walt Disney-created rides, visual presentations of the past and future, scientific demonstrations, films and many more uncommon attractions are being readied.

The block-square, $17 million United States Pavilion will be the most expensive this nation has sponsored at any fair. For Commissioner Norman K. Winston, who has represented the U.S. at world's and world trade fairs at Poznan, Zagreb, Vienna, Paris, Brussels and Moscow, "this is my greatest challenge."

Vast expance of the exposition is seen in tis aerial view. Bell System pavilion is under construction in the foreground.

From the shores of the park's Meadow Lake, a whole commnity of entertainment spectacles will emit a melodious shock wave. In the 11,000-seat amphitheater, a cast of 250 will perform in Wonderworld. There'll be musical comedy in Texas' Music Hall, John Ringling North will stage a circus. In another fair sector, skating star Dick Button will produce a million-dolar ice show.

Greyhound will provide surface transportation in 300 specially designed vehicles. Thirty thousand employees will serve fair visitors, far more than at any earlier exposition. Many will staff the 75 eating places, ranging from prettified hot dog stands to gourmet restaurants.

Can such a cataclysmic combination of brains, wealth, resources, ispiration, will and international co-operation ever fuse again?

Prime mover Moses, now 75, ventures an answer:

"Oh, there'll be other world's fairs," he says, swinging his chair around to survey the rising structures outside his window. "But it's going to be difficult to do anything like this again."