Back in the mid-seventies I discovered the wonder that was the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair. I stumbled across a record of this momentous event in an old Time magazine I found in our school library. Being somewhat of a 60s history buff at that time I searched every magazine and newspaper of the period for additional pictures and articles that would tell me more about this event that took place right in the middle of my hometown. After I had exhausted these avenues of information I expanded my quest by trying to find people who had attended or worked at the Fair. Lucky for me I didn't have to look any further than my own family at first. But knowing my family as I do, that was to be both a blessing and a curse because they are often long with excuses and short on details which was most frustrating to this teenage fact hound. Here is what I did find out from my parents who lived just a few miles away from the Fairgrounds at the time of the Fair:

"It took them forever to build that thing."

"What a traffic nightmare that was for your father."

"We didn't go much. You know your father hates crowds."

"By the time the Fair opened we were sick of hearing about it."

"We heard it was very expensive."

As you can see, I wasn't finding much out at this point. So I asked my mother the big question hoping I could get something more concrete out of her. "Mom? Did you ever get to the World's Fair?" As I eagerly sat awaiting my mother's answer, visions of the wonders that she saw first-hand filled my 13-year-old head. Boy, was that a mistake! She said, "Well, we did go twice in 1965 with my parents. I remember it was summertime and very hot. I was pregnant with your sister and I had to push you around in the stroller."

Wow! Now we were getting somewhere! And more importantly, I now knew that I went to the Fair too! "OK mom. What did we see?" Images of the major industrial exhibits, foreign lands and far off states danced in my head. My mom continued, "We really didn't see that much of the big exhibits. It was very crowded and everything was so far apart. I did see the Bell exhibit. I remember the long line. Your father wouldn't wait so he and your grandfather went to drink beer at the Schaefer Center."

"On our way back to meet them we passed the Clairol Pavilion. I remember we stuck our heads in these domes that showed us what we would look like with different hair colors. That was fun; no line to do that!" Got it so far mom. Beer. Bell. Hair. Tell me more...

"Not much more to tell." she said, "You were cranky, I was tired and your grandmother was hungry and you know what that means." I sure did. I was about to find out more than I really cared to know about one restaurant at the World's Fair. Care to guess which one? Spain? Mexico? Japan? China? The Festival of Gas? Nope. My family spent the rest of their time at one of the biggest World's Fairs ever held at the Seven-Up Pavilion drinking soda and eating small sandwich platters! My mom regaled me with how good and how inexpensive they were. This is what impressed my family most about the Fair; a good roast beef sandwich and a soda served in a paper cup!

"This is what impressed my family most about the Fair; a good roast beef sandwich and a soda served in a paper cup!"

I had to ask my mom, "You mean you didn't even get to the GM exhibit?" "No, we didn't see that. Your father said it was too far to walk to and you know how your father hates to wait on big lines." I was in shock. I mean, how could 29-million people see the future at the General Motors Futurama and my parents, who lived just a mere couple of miles away, not see it because there was a line! I was a little disappointed but not surprised. This was the summer of '76 and my father had recently refused to go see the Tall Ships in New York Harbor for the Bicentennial because there would be too much traffic and too many people there.

But my mom did give me two important things which I treasure to this day. One is a handful of black and white Polaroids from the Fair. And the other was the little fact that her father had worked at the Fair during its construction as an electrician! My grandfather was to visit soon from Florida and he would provide me with more behind-the-scenes details than I could imagine and take me on the first of my many visits to the site of the World's Fair: Flushing Meadows/Corona Park.

When my grandfather finally arrived he was ready for my questions. I guess my mom had forewarned him of my budding interest in the Fair and her lack of details to satisfy my curiosity. My grandfather was nothing like the rest of my relatives. My mother's father was a self-taught very intelligent man of details and dreams. He could remember many experiences in his life vividly and could retell them in great detail many years later like it happened yesterday. He was also a man of ideas; most of them half-baked of course. But still he tried.

Shortly after my grandfather's arrival I finally got him to sit down and tell me what he remembered most about working at the Fair. For the next few hours he regaled me with descriptions of the fantastic structures and the crush of people working on the site trying to get ready for the opening of the Fair. Working as a union electrician at the time my grandfather worked at the Bell Pavilion, Better Living Center and the Hall of Science, to name a few. I remember him telling us how interesting the jobs were since many of the exhibit areas required very unusual power and lighting work to meet their exhibit needs.

I also remember how overwhelmed he said he was by the sheer size and scope of the site. He said it was 646 acres of organized chaos the likes of which he had never seen before or since. This from a man who had climbed bridges in the New York area to run power cables and attach lighting fixtures to illuminate those lofty structures! I asked him if we went to the Park, could we still see some of his handiwork? Much to my amazement he said we could go but doubted that we would find much of his work, or anybody else's since much of the Fair had been torn down after it closed. But none-the-less we began to plan our visit to the Park in the next week or so.

Some months before my grandfather's visit I had shared my unusual interest in the Fair with a close friend of mine. He too developed a similar interest and, as such, we would spend long hours researching and trying to locate artifacts for our newfound hobby. While we had quite a little cache going by the time my grandfather arrived; as avid collectors we wanted more. So it was that as we prepared for our visit to the Park I also conned my grandfather to take my friend and I around to a number of collectibles shops all over Long Island to try to find more artifacts from the Fair. It was during one of those many sojourns that I acquired my first Guidebook and Official Map of the Fairgrounds. Over the next few days my friend and I poured over that Guidebook and map like they were the Bible trying to learn everything there was to know about the Fair before our visit to the Park. Now we were ready. Armed with Guidebook, map and my little 110-Instamatic camera we were ready to go and discover the Fair -- or at least what was left of it.