Nineteen Sixty Four

The idea of the NY World's Fair has always lingered around the back of my mind as a subject of intrigue and mystery. When I was a kid, on our annual autumn visits to New York, we would drive through Queens, past the abandoned fairgrounds in Flushing Meadows, and see the eerie skeletons of the massive Unisphere, the UFO-like observation towers, the gigantic New York State Pavilion. And my mom would tell us stories about the awe and glamour of the fair, the lights, the technology, the latest and greatest feats of the modern mind...all reduced to a collection of ruins in a grayish park. I just came across a souvenir from one of her visits to the fair, and for me, it brings back all of the fascination of driving past the ruins...